Mouse Hunt
by Scorpiofreak
Summary: In order to survive and remain free of Negan's control, Samantha uses the industrial ventilation system to move about the Sanctuary undetected. Smart and resourceful, she'll do anything she can to avoid being discovered by Negan, even take on the guise of the women closest to him. It would be so much easier though, if she actually knew what the guy looked like. Slow burn.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: This is my very first Walking Dead fanfic so I'm a little nervous about how this turned out, especially since introductions have never been my forte. This story is going to be a mixture of the comics and television series, so I'm playing it pretty loose with the setup of the Sanctuary.**

 **Special thanks to my buddy, Martyrfan for beta reading this chapter for me.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead**

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Retrospection; the fancy way of saying _'probably shouldn't have done that'_.

Everyone had that moment where hindsight came calling and they had the choice to decide whether something they had done was a good idea or bad idea. Absently picking at a callous on her palm between her pointer and middle finger, the unseen observer of the room peering out through a dusty grate at the people below wondered if she would ever have that moment.

Because it was harder to decide these things right after the fact, given the current state of the world. Ordinarily, back when the world made sense, sneaking into a box truck that belonged to a group of men armed to the teeth, in bound for an unknown location, would seem like a very bad idea. However, the world had ended in spectacular fashion not too long ago and the survivors of the first wave still needed to eat, and when you were cold, starving and on your own, you were in that kind of mindset that would have you following the grim reaper right into the underworld so long as he was holding a ham sandwich.

Additionally, it would also seem like a bad idea to sneak off the truck and stowaway inside the large factory that the scary men staked claim. It was filled with even more scary men, and a staggering amount of less scary, but still possibly armed, men and women workers. The observer was one amongst many a stranger with no real way to defend herself other than her sharp machete and her equally sharp wit, and both would amount to nothing against a loaded assault rifle with the safety switched off.

But it was either deal with the living or deal with the dead, and she had decided a long time ago that dealing with the living was always better because they were usually easier to reason with, and a lot easier to fool. People may be more unpredictable than the goblins, but between the two of them, there was a higher chance of weaseling herself away unscathed from a group of living people than there was with a horde of dead ones.

It had happened just like that for her - sneaking into the van and stowing away in the factory. She been on her own for a very long time, keeping mostly to herself while every now and again getting picked up by a stray group that was friendly enough to let her tag along for a while. She would make nice if they were civil, compare notes about occupied areas and possible supply caches, and even travel with them for a bit before moving on when they were eventually overrun by either the goblins or another group.

She had literally traveled across the country in search of some sort safe haven, a place to set up roots, but whenever she thought she found a place, it would be blown away like the house in Ray Bradbury's 'There Will Come Soft Rains', and each time she barely managed to escape from becoming a silhouette on a wall. No place had been safe or stable enough to stand against this new world. Arriving in Virginia had been a cautionary hope, at best. Just because it housed the nation's capitol, didn't mean it didn't crash and burn like the rest of the country.

That night she had been walking along a highway with nothing on her except a backpack filled with an empty water bottle and a roll of duck tape, and a machete strapped to her belt. Ahead of her, she spotted a car wreck. There were three goblins shuffling nearby, but they were easily taken down and then she was free to search the wreck. Upon investigation she found that it was empty, but she could tell that it had happened recently. She could still smell the burning rubber wafting off the asphalt and see spilled gasoline on the ground when she went to scavenge it. To her disappointment, there had been nothing worth taking. None of the goblins she took down looked fresh enough to be newly turned so the occupants of the wreck must have survived whatever went down and abandoned the car with their supplies.

She was about to move on when she heard the sound of approaching vehicles through the deafening hum of crickets and cicadas. The wreck happened at an incline on the highway so she couldn't see, or be seen by, whoever was coming until they crested the hill. She dived into the surrounding forest, narrowly missing the headlights that shined to life on the wreck as a military jeep and a box truck lulled to a stop. Several figures piled out of the jeep and started assessing the remains of the car, just like she had done. Low murmurs of conversation could be heard, but nothing comprehensible from her hiding spot in the forest. All she could do was stay hunkered down behind a bush and ready herself to bolt further into the forest if needed.

She eyed each figure, studying them as they milled about the road in an unified fashion, holding their assault rifles and handguns at the ready. Four of the men went to pick through the wreck while two took point and rear to watch for goblins. They didn't look like service men, but they held position like they were. She saw the one man still standing by the jeep, pull something from his belt and holding it to his face.

The sound of static filled the air. A walkie-talkie.

 _'What's the hold up?'_ A voice buzzed through the radio.

"Nothing, boss. Just a wreck on the highway. Looked like it just happened, thought we'd check it out. No sign of anybody, though."

 _'Forget it. I'm not in the fucking mood to deal with stragglers tonight. Just get back to the Sanctuary, fucking post haste.'_

"You got it, boss," the man released the talk button and put the radio back on his belt. He whistled through his teeth at his men. "Alright boys, wrap it up! We head out in two."

It was hard to tell through the darkness, but with how clear the frequency had been, and how utterly barren the surrounding area was of other human life (she knew, she checked), suggesting a very wide radio range, it sounded like the man had an AN/PRC-148. Military grade radio. Definitely not something you would find in the boys' toy section at Walmart. These men, whoever they were, were well armed, well communicated and well organized, which suggested that they came from a much larger group with a massive setup somewhere.

She saw the truck, the open and unguarded back of it, and made a split decision.

Distant growls in the forest behind her spurred her on as she snuck out and jump into the back just as the engine roared to life and the truck started moving again. She hid among the supplies, making herself as small as possible. Once she was tucked firmly inside, all she could do was wait, listening to the radio playing up front and feeling the gentle vibration of the road speeding by beneath her. The entire ride her heart pounded in her chest with _'what did I just do, what did I just do?_ ' playing on repeat in her head.

Sneaking off had been easier than anticipated. They hadn't unloaded it when they reached their base. She couldn't see or hear much of what was going on outside the truck, but she was able to just barely make out the sounds of goblins growling, a chain link fence rattling and men shouting. She sat poised behind a stack of boxes in the back, ready to face whatever was waiting for her when the truck stopped and the men found her hiding in the back. Only, they didn't. The truck pulled into a garage and the men climbed out. She waited with baited breath, expecting the back to fling open any second, but the voices of the men only grew quieter as they left the garage, leaving the bounty inside the truck, untouched.

She waited for as long as she could stand it, listening for movement. When ten minutes passed without anything happening, she crept out of the truck and into the garage. She kept her head low as she searched the garage before eventually venturing outside. The ride had been long, but it was still dark outside, giving her cover. Being on the ground floor at night made it impossible for her to get a good look of her surroundings beyond the hulking mass of the factory looming overhead, so she relied on her hearing to do most of the navigating. With her footsteps light and her attention alert, she left the cover of the garage and went exploring.

Now she was here, inside "The Sanctuary", as the inhabitants ironically (not funnily) called it.

If she had known beforehand that the group took in people on a regular basis, then maybe she would have made her presence known at the truck. If she had known so many people lived in the compound, safe from the goblins, then maybe she would have left the vents and slipped in with a group of new arrivals. She could stare in awe with them, pretend she was seeing the factory for the first time and no one would be any wiser for it. She could have gone through the orientation and be given a job where she would work for points to support herself, and maybe build a life for herself in this so-called Sanctuary.

But she didn't.

She knew from the moment she spotted the men on the road that something wasn't right about them. Instinct had kicked in and it had her doing something very foolish, but she didn't make it this far on her own by not trusting her instincts. Her instinctual drive is what got her through the worse of the supposed apocalypse, even more so than any blade or firearm had. She wasn't big or strong in the physical sense by any means, but she was quick and clever. That was her biggest advantage in the new world and she never ignored an opportunity to use it.

From the garage she found the main building, and from the main building she found the vents. Like any factory, the Sanctuary had an industrial ventilation system. Old and dusty and full of cobwebs, but still big enough for someone her size to crawl through, and stable enough to support her weight. She had used vent systems in the past to escape goblins and hostile groups, but those were inside smaller buildings, like stores and emergency stations. Never had she crawled around inside a system as big as the Sanctuary's. She spent the first day just exploring, learning where each vent let out to and the different routes she could take to get to different locations. She constructed a map in her mind, putting mental pins into the routes that led to the kitchen, the armory, the makeshift marketplace, the showers, the common rooms, the boiler room and anywhere else that might house anything useful to her.

Her movements were constricted to just daytime, when the Sanctuary was at its loudest and no one could hear her moving around, but she made the most of what she could. Once she learned the vents like the back of her hand, she started making plans to leave and gather supplies. During her expedition, she came across an old, cluttered maintenance hall with no outlet that seemed like it was used mostly for storage and was left abandoned. She picked one of the rooms to sleep in and made a little bed behind plastic water barrels filled with rusted machinery, using an old tarp and some packing foam. It wasn't much, but she was confident that there was enough material around her to build it up once she gathered supplies.

It was foolproof. In theory only, though. Because foolproof suggested the folly of a fool, and she was definitely a tenacious one, so it was more like a half-cocked hypothesis than a solid, reliable plan because she had yet to really test it. She had been using the vents to get around for what had to be almost a week by then, and she hadn't worked up enough nerve to steal anything more than pieces of bread and apples to keep from starving, or use the restroom when she absolutely needed it.

For the most part she just did what she did best; she watched. Watched the daily activities of the Sanctuary. She watched the people and how they interacted with each other. She watched their behavior and how it changed in different situations. In addition to looking miserable from sunrise to sunset, they seemed to constantly be walking on eggshells, terrified that one wrong move would get them punished. They kept their heads down in the presence of higher ups and talked only amongst their own. It was actually really hard to watch. She didn't have much of an ego so she wasn't afraid to admit that she hadn't been the most helpful person in the past, having denied others in favor of her own self-preservation, but she still felt empathy for the clearly oppressed Sanctuary workers.

She was on the outside looking in, but that was nothing new.

It wasn't perfect. Far from it. The vents were dark and drafty even on the warmest nights, and hot and stuffy on the coolest of days. It was dusty and full of all sorts of creepy crawlies, and the boxed in atmosphere made her feel even more isolated then traveling by herself in a dead world. If the vents weren't so vital to her new situation, then she was sure she would have developed claustrophobia by now. Not to mention all the asbestos she was probably breathing in, but thinking realistically, everything about this new world could, and probably would, kill her much faster than cancer ever could so she didn't waste energy worrying about that.

No, the vents were far from ideal.

However, after observing how the people lived in the Sanctuary as opposed to her, it was difficult to decide just who had it worst. Because while she felt like a raccoon trapped in someone's crawl space, at least she didn't have to personally deal with the people who ran the place. The Saviors.

They were the not-so-secret police that worked for the man who ran the Sanctuary. Negan, his name was, if the gossip she heard through the vents could be trusted. She had spied on many of the saviors around the compound, but she didn't think she had yet to spot the head honcho. In all honesty, it was hard to tell. She tried to pick out any men who could possibly be the boss, but the saviors were a boiling pot of human garbage and their pecking order was why too arbitrary to follow. It was like each new face acted bigger and more in charge than the last, so it was hard to single out the assholiest of the assholes and identify their leader.

Looking to the workers for any indication was pointless as well. People kept their eyes to the floor and questioned nothing - said nothing as they did hard work for little pay - did nothing when a savior stole people's stuff just because they could and started beating on someone for no reason. They were lemmings. No more alive than the goblins chained to the front gate.

It was typical follower behavior; letting yourself be stripped of all individual thought at the command of the first person offering a solution. That wasn't bitter thinking. She understood why some people would chose safety over freedom (fear, love, desperation), but she had never been a follower, and she had no one to lose but herself so she had to hang on to those most basic traits of her personality, otherwise she wasn't going to make it through to see another day.

Still though, despite the brutality and Big Brother vibes, the Sanctuary was an impressive setup. By far the most stable and efficient one she had come across since the world went down the drain.

They had everything; electricity, running water, working plumbing, a formidable armory, solid walls, strong fences, a marketplace with an assortment of lost treasures from the old world like Suave shampoo and tampax, and the food. The food was by far the best perk. Just from what she had seen in the cafeteria, she knew that the compound had a sizable agricultural operation somewhere on the grounds. In the mornings she could smell eggs and biscuits cooking through the vents, smell the grilled cheese for lunch and hear the chopping of crisp vegetables for dinner.

From her high perch inside the ventilation shaft that ran through the cafeteria, she could see the full spread of the serving line. Tonight they were serving some sort of stew with slices of bread, and a little helping of vegetables for those who could afford them. At the end of the line, there were two piles of apples which she assumed were green and red respectively judging by the way some people considered each pile before picking one up, but because of her deficiency, they all looked a murky green to her.

It was, again, very impressive, and even more so that there was enough to feed so many people on a daily basis.

It was hell on earth for most of its residents, with a tyrant leader on one side of the fence and hungry corpses on the other, but it was a necessary hell. She just counted her lucky stars that she found a loophole in the embargo, finding a way to live inside the Sanctuary without breaking her back working for points.

Again, it wasn't the most ideal setup. She knew that she was in enemy territory. No matter how much she stole and got away with it clean, nothing could make her forget that. She wouldn't get overconfident. She wouldn't kid herself. If she was caught by the saviors, they would kill her, she knew that. It could all come crashing down over her head at any moment. But she still maintained her belief; being with the hostile living was better than begin out amongst the walking dead, and she planned to stick around for as long as she could.

Which, unfortunately, may not be very long at all, because word around the compound was that the Sanctuary had a rat problem - and Sam took offense to that.

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 **AN: If you enjoyed the first chapter, make sure to tell me in a review so that I know to continue. Let me know your thoughts and feelings. All are welcome to review; account holders and guest readers alike.**

 **Next chapter will be spent fleshing out the Sanctuary and the ventilation system better, hopefully helping out with any confusion. Sorry that there was no Negan in this chapter, but he's going to show up real soon.**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	2. A Day in the Life

**AN: Thanks so much for the support last chapter, and shout out to the-lights-there and the guest who reviewed last chapter. I really appreciate the feedback.** **This chapter is un-beta read so there might be a few mistakes in the material. If you come across one, let me know in a review and I'll fix it.**

 _ **Recently Re-Edited: 2/23/19**_

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead.**

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 _A Day In The Life, or, "Cobwebs are not part of a balanced breakfast."_

~O~

Mornings were the hardest.

Samantha had been hiding in the Sanctuary for almost three weeks and it hadn't gotten any easier to pull herself out of her warm sleeping bag and up into a cold vent. In addition to not being a morning person, the worst part of Sam's day was crawling into the vents first thing in the morning. All the dust that she had kicked up crawling around the day before would settle overnight and be fresh and ready to irritate her sinuses. A person could only inhale so many spider webs before they went insane.

The back of her throat itched with the urge to cough, but she forced it down as she crawled through the west wing vent shaft. It was daylight; there were enough people making noise to drown out any that she made, but it would be just her luck that some savior on break would be leaning against a wall and heard her hacking up a lung.

She needed to shower and mornings were the best time to go. Her knees ached as she changed vents for a route that led to the east wing of the main building, heading for the locker rooms. One of the vents there would open up to a supply closet next to the women's locker room. When she got to the desired grate, it popped out easily from where the screws were already loosened, something that she had done to all the grates during her first week in the Sanctuary. She breathed a mouthful of slightly fresher air as she crawled out, pulling her shower bag out behind her.

Some of the vent exits ran along the ground while some were up higher in the corner of rooms; it depended on which area she was in. The supply closet vent was near the ground, giving her a break with putting the grate back in place.

Looking inside her bag, she double checked that she had everything before leaving the closet; her towel along with her toothbrush and toothpaste, generic soaps, deodorant and hairbrush, all of which she had gotten from the marketplace.

She didn't lead an innocent life in the Sanctuary. She stole things, all the time. Everything in her little hideaway was stolen, taken from the kitchen and the marketplace and even from people's rooms - via the vents. At night, she would use them to get into locked rooms and take supplies. She took only one or two things at a time to keep the constant theft more inconspicuous, but she was still _taking_ things. Things that workers needed and worked hard to get. It was necessary but also guilt-inducing, so she had mixed feelings about the situation.

She didn't care about stealing from the saviors, because chances were stealing was how they got their stuff in the first place, but she didn't want to take from the workers unless she absolutely had to. She only took necessities on a regular basis, like food, water and toiletries, while trying to keep her sticky fingers for luxury items like books and nicer clothing to a minimum.

Sam closed her bag and made for the closet door. She cracked it open just enough to peek her head out, listening for footsteps as she scanned the hall. When she didn't see or hear anybody coming, she slipped out. She walked towards the shower area, taking in everything as she went as she typically did.

Her deficiency made the Sanctuary look even more depressing. She saw the world in murky greens, pale yellows, greys and blues, so whatever coloring that the Sanctuary might have had beyond bland concrete and rust, it was lost on her. Everything looked pale and lackluster to her. It added an extra layer to the overall gloom and doom atmosphere.

Contrary to her initial observations, though, she realized that the Sanctuary wasn't all that bad for some people. If you weren't a savior you could still lead a decent life, as long as you had the right job and were friends with the right people. It operated much like the old world did with the rich bigwigs on top like the saviors, the middle class of able-bodied workers, and then the people living in poverty, consisting of mostly the elderly and disabled. Deja Vu.

She passed workers in the hall, but didn't make eye contact with them. She arrived at the women's locker room without incident, stepping into the tiled room and picking a bench to put her stuff down. After stripping her clothes off, she hung her towel on a shower stall hook before stepping in and closing the cheap, papery curtain behind her.

The pipes groaned in baritone agony when she turned the water on. She could hear them clanking around behind the wall. The shower head rattled hard and water that was barely lukewarm squirted out - first a foul brown and then a dubious clear. She stepped under the spray and leaned her head back, letting the water soak her hair and cascade down her body.

From the other side of the curtain she could hear women walking around, using the sinks and lockers. Sam wasn't as jumpy as she was when she had first started leaving the vents for things other than food and potty breaks. Thinking back, she almost smiled at how paranoid she must have looked, walking among the workers with her shoulders drawn up to her ears and flinching whenever someone so much as looked in her direction. People probably would have thought her a nutcase if paranoia wasn't commonly felt by everyone.

Learning to blend in had been easy. Taking precautions, she made sure to hide the features about herself that drew the most attention. She was a half-and-half mix of Irish and Native American. Her skin was an olive color, a perfect blend of her parent's, but she got her straight nose and blue eyes from her Caucasian mother so her tone could easily be mistaken as a tan that one would get from working in the gardens. Her black hair she got from her father which she kept it stuffed under a cap. She wore clothing stolen from the laundry; plain and baggy so they swallowed up her frame, making her entirely unremarkable.

There was an advantage of hiding in a place where everyone was terrified of stepping out of line; they were always too busy looking at their feet to notice a stranger's face.

Still, she was careful to avoid people, only making conversation when she couldn't turn around and walk away. In those instances it was usually a savior who approached her, and nine times out of ten they were only hitting on her. Once they realized that she wasn't taking offers, they would lose interest and leave her alone. However, on the off chance that they weren't trying to flirt, it was a savior telling her to do a job, which she would do without protest.

Occasionally, she would get roped into doing work around the Sanctuary, if she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but she didn't fuss. In fact, it helped lessen her guilt a little and gave her a chance to be around people. She wouldn't talk to any of them, of course, but it was nice to listen to the sounds of life, gossip and laughter, as they worked along side each other. It gave her a rare feeling of normalcy.

Whenever someone asked for her name, she would give them a false answer that changed with each person. She would then make note of their face and keep watch for them so she could avoid another encounter. It didn't matter how rude or friendly they were, she avoided everybody. She couldn't have people getting to know her, it would only make her distinguishable, and then by extension - traceable. That was why she also avoided developing a daily routine. She randomized her schedule as much as she could to make sure she was never in the same place at the same time on any given day.

It was all about confidence, really. She could go just about anywhere accessible to the workers and do just about anything as long as she acted like she knew what she was doing. If she told someone that she was supposed to be there and they saw that she meant it, they didn't question her. She wondered if that made her come off as a savior.

Briefly, she had considered promoting herself from pseudo worker to pseudo savior for access to more secure areas like workshops and the armory, but she wasn't going to risk a run-in with Negan, at least not until she knew what he looked like. Total anonymity was still the best policy right now and she wasn't going to give it up. Nobody looked twice at her.

Well, except maybe the blonde.

The one with the scarred face.

There were a couple of people whom Sam had marked with a red flag in her head, and the blonde was one of them. A red flag meant avoiding that individual at all costs because of potential exposure. The reason the blonde had a red flag was because Sam believed that he suspected something of her, that he took note of her face and realized it didn't look familiar.

She had been outside the main building last week, taking in the surroundings for the first time and watching the outer fence, observing how the posted guards operated. She had been pretending to be part of the gardening crew, kneeling next to a patch of tomatoes while covertly glancing around from underneath an obnoxious sunhat. The blonde had appeared next to her out of nowhere, kneeling down and grabbing one of the tomatoes without so much as an "excuse me".

She jumped at the sudden invasion of her space and turned to glare at the offender, only for her anger to turn to surprise as she got an unobstructed view of the left side of his face. It was badly scarred, a gruesome burn that left the skin gnarled and sensitive. There were patches of pink, peeling skin that showed how new the injury still was. She didn't mean to stare, but the blonde caught her and gave her an ugly sneer.

He opened his mouth to tell Sam to get back to work, but then stopped short. Confusion twisted his features into something less aggressive as his eyes moved over her face, too critical for her comfort. Her heart seized when she realized that he was trying to place her. He wasn't going to be able to, obviously, and she dreaded what conclusion he would draw from that.

Fortunately, his train of thought was derailed when his radio buzzed to life on his belt. He turned away from her and answered, but as he left the gardens, she didn't fail to notice how he glanced back at her one last time with that same look.

Later, she found out that his name was Dwight and that he was one of Negan's top men. He worked very close with Simon, Negan's second in command (and fellow Red Flag Holder), and presumably with the boss himself, so Sam marveled at the bullet she had dodged. She avoided Dwight like the plague after that. She didn't go anywhere without first checking that the blonde wasn't lurking about, because he got around, more than any other savior.

Shutting off her thoughts so she could finish showering before the water turned too cold, Sam lathered her hair with a little bottle of motel shampoo that she had pilfered from the marketplace, making sure to wash the dark strands thoroughly so she wouldn't have to come back again for a couple of days.

She rinsed and shut off the water, grabbing her towel from the hook and wrapping it around her to banish the drafty air of the shower room. She managed to get a free sink without much trouble and brushed her teeth. The woman using the sink next to her gave her a swig of her mouthwash in exchange for a little bottle of conditioner.

Once she was finished, she got dressed and brushed her hair. She slipped on an old pair of jeans with holes in both knees, a grey tank top and a baggy, button up shirt that she saw as beige but was probably actually some shade of green. She pulled on her boots and laced them up before packing all her supplies back into her bag. Her hat came last; a blue army cap that she stuffed all of her hair up into.

Feeling clean and reinvigorated, she gave herself a once over in the mirror before leaving the shower room.

Her goals for today were to explore the workshops and boiler room in hopes of finding machine scraps and wires for a couple of projects that she was working on in her hideout. Tools were also on the list, and maybe a few manuals to help her get a sense of what type of equipment they had in the Sanctuary, since she couldn't even begin to guess where she could find blueprints of its interior - if there were any. She even hoped to one day procure one of the saviors' radios so she could listen in on their operations.

There was still a lot to do and she didn't want to waste any daylight. She stepped out into the hallway, keeping her head down as she set out to start her day.

~O~

The cafeteria was where she saw one for the first time.

When the woman stepped into the room wearing a dress, Samantha thought she was an apparition. A hallucination of times long past brought on by breathing in too much recycled air from inside the vents.

She shined like a spotlight among the downtrodden people sitting at the tables. A freshly polished silver dollar inside a piggy bank filled with dirty pennies found on the sidewalk. Her dress was black and skin tight, barely reaching mid-thigh with a plunging neckline. Her hair was clean and dyed a solid red. Her face was painted with makeup and her nails were manicured, making her look like she had just come from the only beauty salon left standing in the apocalypse.

The tell-tale tapping of her stilettos got Sam's attention, even through the chatter and pot clanging of the cafeteria. It wasn't loud, but it was distinguishable, and when she saw the woman appear in the entrance way, she couldn't help stare. Her jaw almost dropped like in the cartoons. It was shocking, to see a woman like that walking around a place like the Sanctuary.

She looked around at the other diners to see if they were just as thrown by this as her, but nobody looked up from their meals. In fact, it seemed like many of them were making a conscious effort not to look at the woman.

She stood by the entrance, rocking on her heels as she waited for something. After a few minutes, another woman joined her, dressed even more scandalous than her companion. She had on a lace tube top that was a color Sam couldn't perceive, with a pair of cut-off shorts and wedged sandals. Her short blonde hair was styled flawlessly and her eyes were done in a movie star fashion.

She came in with a cheerful bounce in her step, her cheeks flushed. She exchanged a look with the other woman. No words passed between them, but the first woman gave her a knowing smirk before they both started giggling. They linked arms and strolled towards the service line, cutting everybody already waiting and grabbing the attention of one of the kitchen staff. Sam watched in awe.

" _M_ _ocosos malcriados_ ," a voice rolled.

She turned to look at the woman standing next to her in line; a middle-aged Latina with a round face and wide hips, wearing a gardening apron that stretched tight across her front. She must have noticed Sam's stare because she was watching the women also, but with a look of disdain rather than astonishment.

"Pardon?" Sam replied, arching one of her eyebrows.

"Them," she nodded in the women's direction. "Spoiled brats, every one of them, am I right?"

Sam wanted to ask who they were, but her gut told her that was a dangerous question. Nobody was paying the women and their inappropriate wardrobe any mind which made her believe that everyone already knew who they were, and that she should probably know, too. So instead she only nodded her head in agreement.

"The least they can do is put some clothes on when they come down here," the Latina continued. "I don't know what Negan has them doing up there in his rooms, and I don't care to know, but they don't need to be bringing it out here, getting these _p_ _ervertidos_ more riled than they already are. It's _chicas_ like us who suffer for it. You better watch your back when you leave here, honey, you hear me?"

The woman was a picture perfect image of the no-nonsense type. Her tone was stern and Sam could do nothing but nod.

"Pigs think they can get away with touching us so long as they don't stick nothing in. I don't think so," she spat, trailing off in Spanish.

Sam would have left it at that, but she wanted to know who those woman were, especially if they were involved with Negan. As they shuffled along in line, she tried to think of a way to get the Latina to reveal who the women were without directly asking.

"Is there someone you can report that to?" she asked, picking the conversation back up.

The woman turned her head and gave Sam an incredulous look, snorting. "You haven't been here long, have you, honey?"

"I guess not."

"Well, don't worry, you'll learn fast. Negan don't condone rape, but like I said, as long as they don't stick their dicks in places where they're not welcome, nobody cares. It's easy enough for the _Jefe_ to tell a bunch of dirty, horny men to keep their hands to themselves when he's got seven wives to keep his pooch under the porch, but men get stupid when they go too long without sex. It's like serotonins or some shit, drives them loco."

"You mean 'pheromones'?"

The woman gave her a flippant wave. "Whatever. Brain chemicals."

The line shifted forward and they followed, filling in the gap. Sam looked back at the front where the women were still waiting.

They were Negan's _wives_?

Her nose curled up.

Granted, polygamy wasn't an ancient practice done only by long dead civilizations. It was still very much alive in some cultures, but it wasn't in their's, and Sam found it disturbing to actually witness such a situation.

Negan was obviously not above taking advantage of the fall of social norms. She wondered if he thought himself as some kind of king in the new world, having a harem of women to satisfy his every whim. He was either the most egotistical man in the apocalypse, or the most insecure; she doubted he would feel the need to have more than one wife, otherwise.

The Latina spoke again, drawing her attention back.

"Before all this went down, I was always wishing to be twenty years younger so I could get my figure back from high school, but now I'm actually glad my better years are behind me," she said with bittersweet amusement as she grabbed two trays from a parked cart and handed one to Sam. "You, on the other hand, I'm surprised he isn't down here sniffing at your heels as we speak. That man tracks pussy like a fucking bloodhound, I swear. Has he asked you to be a wife?"

"No, he hasn't. I haven't seen much him, just when I first came here."

"Lucky you."

"Would you think me a spoiled brat too if he did?" Sam asked, only to keep the conversation going rather than out of honest inquiry.

She pursed her lips before shrugging her shoulders. "Nah, I guess not. That was just me lettin' off some steam. His wives don't have to work for points and they get extra protection, and in a world like this, that shouldn't be taken lightly. So they have to suck some dick for perks - big deal. It's not like whoring yourself out for shiny things is anything new or nothing. I'm just saying they should cover their _tetas_ so the rest of us don't have to deal with guys trying to hump our legs for the rest of the evening."

The corner of Sam's mouth curled up at the Latina's blunt language and she realized that was the closest she had come to smiling in a long time.

"I'm Gloria, by the way," she introduced.

Sam was saved from having to give out another alias by the women finally receiving their trays. She watched as they took the trays and sashayed out of the cafeteria without thanking the kitchen staff. Gloria shook her head.

"Brats," she said again. "They get whatever they want."

"And go wherever they want?" Sam asked, thoughtfully, still looking where they had disappeared.

"Mmhm."

The line shifted forward again, but she was too distracted to notice.

Her thoughts stayed with Negan's wives. Something was nagging in the back of her mind, the ghost of an idea that had yet to form completely but begged contemplation anyways. Gloria looked back from where she was putting a bowl of stew on her tray and noticed that Sam hadn't followed her.

"Hey honey," she called, snapping the younger woman out of her trance. "Come on, you're holding up the line. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, turning away from the serving line.

"Where are you going?" Gloria asked. "Don't you want dinner?"

"No, I changed my mind."

Sam left her empty tray on the counter, letting the people behind her fill in her spot in line. Gloria watched her until she disappeared out of the cafeteria like the two women minutes before. The Latina shook her head again and mumbled something in Spanish before turning back to her own tray.

~O~

Since first arriving, her hideout had grown from a pitiful hovel to a decent setup thanks to her scavenging. She managed to get her hands on a sleeping bag and pillow a couple weeks ago and she re-purposed the old tarp as a roof for her little corner between a metal shelf and the water barrels.

Samantha sat on top of her sprawled out sleeping bag with her back against the wall and her knees bent. In her lap was the wirey skeleton of an old radio. She worked a screwdriver at the screw holding the radio's tuning dial in place. The radio was too damaged to fix but it still had good parts inside it that she could reuse for other things. She was starting to build up her own little scrap yard. Scavenged parts lined many of the shelves and window ceils of the maintenance room, making it feel more lived in, even though an outside eye might see it as adding junk to junk.

Tinkering helped her unwind and process. Her method of choosing a device to open and strip, the meticulousness of it, soothed her racing mind enough to compartmentalize. It was familiar, age-old to the point where her hands moved with little conscious thought.

Before the world ended, Sam had been in school working on her degree in mechanical engineering. She loved to build and invent things, spending her childhood tinkering with the insides of clocks and television remotes to see how they worked; a habit she had learned from her father who had been an all-purpose, blue collar handyman.

Always trying to make ends meet, her father did any and all jobs: from electrical to plumbing, mechanics to landscaping, locksmith to old-fashioned carpentry and everything in between. Going to school had just been a formality; everything Sam knew about mechanics, she learned from her father.

Going into engineering seemed like the natural thing to do after graduating high school. It was something that she was good at and enjoyed doing, but it wasn't an easy field. Other than being a predominantly male field, she had a handicap that made her studies more difficult and made other people doubt her abilities as a competent engineer.

Sam was colorblind.

Personally, she liked to refer to it as "color deficient", because when she said colorblind, people assumed she meant like a dog because of the old myth, seeing in only black and white, but that wasn't what it was.

She had red-green colorblindness, or deuternopia sight, meaning that she had difficulty discriminating red and green hues.

It wasn't impossible, but it made distinguishing many colors a hit or miss process. Red was murky green, green was murky green, orange was murky green, yellow was beige(ish), purple was blue, pink was grey, and depending on the brightness and saturation, darker shades were brown or black.

She had inherited from her grandmother on her father's side. She used to have special sunglasses that helped her see the color spectrum, but she had lost them during the initial outbreak when she was trying to get to an evacuation zone in Seattle.

Over the years she had developed a color intuition that helped, but her vision still literally paled in comparison to everybody else's. She had many skills, but seeing the vibrancy of the world was not within her capabilities. It made identifying important wiring and color-coded equipment harder to work with. She didn't let it hinder her, always working hard to get around it. It was a disability, but a small one, and if she were honest, the least of her problematic self.

She was a highly introverted person and not very socially apt. Not awkward, but not outgoing, either. She preferred to observe rather than engage. She was the kind of person who understood machines better than people.

Being in the vents worked in her favor this way. She was never really good with people, even before. She didn't know whether it was because she moved around as a kid, or maybe her resting bitch face, but she wasn't a very magnetic person. Most of the time she came off as quiet and aloof which could be mistaken as being standoffish, which could then be mistaken as being uppity and that could lead to several misunderstandings before she even had a chance to open her mouth.

Not to mention she wasn't very great at small talk, either.

She was a creature of knowledge in every aspect. Before, her television was always either on the Discovery channel or the Smithsonian channel. Her Netflix recommendations were full of documentaries and she read everything from textbooks to desk calendars, to the labels on cracker boxes and jars of jelly. She soaked knowledge up like a sponge and made parties awkward by sharing facts like how the Romans used urine to whiten teeth as an anecdote because Becky Miller from lab smoked like a chimney and drank coffee by the gallon and yet still wondered why her teeth were stained.

Putting the screwdriver aside, Sam took out the last useful parts of the old radio before tossing what was left into one of the empty water barrels; her junk barrel. She then deposited the parts into the soup cans that she had set up on a shelf to keep her equipment organized, dropping each piece inside with a satisfied smile. She was a bit of a packrat and she loved it when she added something new to her "collection".

With that done, she put away her tools and settled back down. As she laid back on her sleeping bag waiting for the sun to go down, she noticed a spider crawling on the side of one of the water barrels that flanked her hideout.

She picked up a pencil she used for doing a book of word searches that she had stole from a savior's room and reached out to poke at it with the eraser end. The spider started, raising its front legs in defense, but stayed where it was. It moved its legs in a way that almost seemed indignant. Gently, she managed to coax it on to the pencil.

"Is that you who makes all the webs in the vents?" she asked the spider, holding the pencil up to eye level. "They keep getting tangled in my hair."

She watched it crawl on the pencil before dropping down to hang from it. She was careful not to breath too hard so the delicate thread the spider hung from wouldn't break. It was about the size of a nickel with a black body and long, gorgeous legs that curled elegantly into itself. The abdomen had a little white on it, reminding her of Miss Spider from 'James and the Giant Peach'.

"Don't worry, I forgive you," she said, mimicking Miss Spider's French accent, going on to quote: " _I am not loved at all. And yet I do nothing but good. All day long I catch flies and mosquitoes in my webs. I am a decent person_."

She stood up and raised the pencil towards one of the factory windows. There was a web in the corner where she placed the pencil on the ceil, leaving it there so the spider could climb off on its own when it was ready.

"Watch out for rhinoceroses," she told it before she sat back down on her sleeping bag and pulled her legs up to her chest.

She rested her head on her knees with a tired sigh, her eyes heavy but her mind still racing.

Her thoughts found the wives again.

~O~

The plan was beyond dangerous.

Dangerous, reckless and stupid.

But potentially a major breakthrough for how she moved around the Sanctuary and the type of supplies and equipment she could get her hands on. It was dangerous, but necessary if she wanted to continue thriving while hiding inside the vents.

She was heading straight into the dragon's keep and stealing its treasure.

It wasn't thrilling at all. It was downright terrifying. She dropped out of a vent on to a floor that was very much restricted. If she were caught, regardless of whether they believed she was a worker or not, she was going to be in trouble. The top floor of the Sanctuary was forbidden territory to everybody except Negan, his wives and his most trusted saviors. The consequences for being caught should have been enough to make her rethink the idea, and yet there she was lurking in the shadows of the top floor, looking for where the wives slept.

The plan was half-cocked at best. She still didn't know what Negan looked like, so in addition to severely overstepping his boundaries, she didn't know who she should be on the look out for. If Negan came walking up to her, she would have no idea whether to pretend to be a worker, or run and hide. The man had been just as elusive to her as she had been with his men, but not from a lack of trying.

Though his face was still shrouded in obscurity, from wandering around the Sanctuary, she learned a lot about how he liked to operate and how he had a set of rules that he forced all his people to live by. She learned about the outposts that he had, showcasing just how far-reaching his influence was, and how he subjugated other communities of survivors, making them pay up to the saviors for protection. He was brutal and crass with a method of punishment that would have even the bravest of fighters falling into line.

She heard that he liked to curse a lot, but what exactly constituted "a lot" in a place like this? Sam herself didn't curse so pretty much any cursing seemed excessive to her. She also heard that he wore a black leather jacket and a red scarf, but that wasn't helpful, either. More than a couple of saviors wore leather jackets and she couldn't see red. Her best bet was to keep an eye out for the baseball bat.

The horror stories of Lucille were mentioned just as often as Negan was. A Louisville slugger wrapped in barbed wire. Negan's weapon of choice.

It was his most prized possession, being almost an extension of himself with the way he talked about it as if it were an actual person. It was the cruel hand of fate to rule breakers and enemies of the Sanctuary. She heard workers speak of the way he used it to make statements, all the gory details about how he took pleasure in using the bat to beat people's heads in. When she first heard about Lucille, she hoped it wasn't a foreshadowing of her own fate if she were ever caught. It was too gruesome of a way to die, only rivaled by being torn apart by goblins.

From her understanding, Negan didn't always have Lucille on him but most of the time he did, so it was the best way to identify him.

Sam slipped into the shadows of the hall. Keeping her ears tuned into her surroundings, she began to explore the top floor of the Sanctuary, peeking into every unlocked door she came across. The objective was to find the room where the wives kept their clothing. She had no idea what the sleeping arrangements were, whether the wives had their own separate rooms or if Negan made them all sleep together in a bed like gross pride of lions. She was hoping for the latter because this late at night, it was more than likely Negan was already in his bedroom, and she did not want to sneak directly into the belly of the beast.

After twenty minutes of blind searching, she came to a closed pair of double doors with light shining out the bottom. Crouching low to the ground with her footsteps light, she crept up to the doors and listened. There were voices on the other side, talking in soft tones that she couldn't decipher through the wood, but as far as she could tell all the voices were female. The wives. Double doors usually suggested common rooms so this had to be some sort of living room or parlor.

Still crouched, she moved past the doors and went further down the hall until she came to another single door. She tried the handle but it was locked.

Sam bit back a noise of frustration as she reached into the little satchel she brought with her and pulled out the poor man's lock picking kit she had created from items she found around the Sanctuary. It consisted of a bobby pin, a few paper clips, a rusty dental periodontal probe that would have given her tetanus if she wasn't already vaccinated for it, and a card sized piece of plastic that she cut out of an empty bottle of Coke.

The door had a standard sub-par knob lock, one of the easiest kinds to pick. Taking out her pen light from her back pocket, she placed it behind her ear and angled it on the lock. She then took the thin piece of plastic and wedged it between the lock bolt and the door jam. Trying to be quiet, she pushed down on to the bolt and grabbed the handle of the door, wiggling it back and forth until the lock gave way and the door popped open. Sam smirked in satisfaction as she put her tools back in her bag and stepped into the room.

Using her pen light, she shined it around the room to find an average sized bedroom with a twin bed and nice furniture. The room definitely belonged to one of the wives with how it was decorated. The scent of perfume hung heavy in the air, smelling like a cosmetics department in a high end store. Sam hadn't smelt perfume in a long time and it was almost too much. The flowery smell attacked her senses like a foreign virus, making her almost back out of the room. She was too used to the smell of mildew, metal and rotted goblin flesh. She pulled the collar of her shirt up over her nose to filter the smell before shining the light again.

There wasn't a closet in the room, but there was a large, antique looking wardrobe next to the vanity. She opened it and shifted through the hanging clothes inside. In the very back she found a black dress, the apparent uniform of the wives, and slipped it off the hanger. Since it was all the way in the back, chances were the owner wouldn't notice it missing right away - if at all. It looked roughly her size so she stuffed it into her bag without a second glance before moving on to the display of shoes that the wife had running along the floor, choosing a simple pair of black heels to go with the dress.

Not wanting to spend anymore time inside the concubine's chamber than she had to, Sam closed the wardrobe and left. She moved to sneak back past the parlor doors, but just as she was about to clear them, one opened, spilling a portion of light out into the dark hallway.

Her heart jumped into her throat as reflexes kicked in. She pivoted herself forward, crouching behind the door that opened outwards. A flash of panic and heat soaked her skin as her breath lodged in her throat. The wife who had opened the door lingered in the threshold and Sam could hear her speaking to the others still inside. She must have been facing the other wives when she had opened the door because she gave no indication that she had seen Sam in the hallway.

"Where are you going, Sherry?"

"To bed. I don't care if Negan stays up all night, but I'm not doing the same. If he asks, tell him I'll come see him in the morning."

Sam stood petrified behind the door, listening to the exchange with her bag clutched to her chest. She clung to the shadows still giving her cover and prayed to whoever was listening that the wife wouldn't catch her. She was so sure that she would. Her eyes snapped shut and her body tensed to the point of pain as she prepared herself.

One of the wives answered before a chorus of goodnights sounded out. The departing wife, Sherry, returned the bid before stepping out into the hallway. It must have been a selective blindness or a failure to acknowledge her peripherals that had the wife closing the door without looking around and leaving in the opposite direction, completely missing the person standing barely three feet away from her.

Too terrified to move, Sam remained paralyzed against the wall without any cover except the darkness. Her eyes shifted, looking to the right and watching the wife walk away, unaware. Eventually she disappeared further down the hallway, but Sam could still hear her heels clicking against the floor. She didn't dare move until she heard a door in the distance open and then close.

She released the breath she had been holding, feeling lightheaded. Her legs felt like noodles as she finally peeled herself away from the wall.

As soon as she was clear of the wives' parlor, she took off down the hall, putting as much distance between her and the top floor as possible. Instead of using the vent, she took the stairs and didn't stop until she made it two floors down.

Her back hit a wall again. Her chest heaved as she fought to gain control of her breathing, taking air in deep, nearly hyperventilating. Inside her ribcage she could feel her heart pounding from the adrenaline and the danger of getting caught. Part of her felt giddy that the first stage of her plan, though insane, had actually worked, but her hands still trembled as she clutched her bag tight.

Feeling she earned it, she took a couple minutes to compose herself before pushing off the wall. As fun as it was to put herself at risk for a few pieces of clothing, she needed to get back to her hideout.

She turned the corner without looking and ran straight into the person coming in the other direction.

A soft ' _oof_ ' escaped her lips as her nose connected with a solid chest. The impact had her stumbling backwards with her arms still wrapped around her bag, no time to drop it and brace herself. She would have fallen to the ground if it wasn't for the hands that came up to grip her elbows, steadying her.

"Whoa, careful there, girly," a voice laughed. "Don't run me over!"

She didn't look up to see who she had ran into. She was no longer on a restricted floor so it didn't matter if she was seen. A pang ran up the bridge of her nose from the impact and it made her eyes water.

"Sorry," Sam apologized, bringing up a hand to grip her nose.

The voice chuckled. It was a deep, rich sounding laugh that had her realizing that the person she ran into was male.

"Don't worry about it, I wasn't really looking where I was going, either."

She glanced up at him just long enough to catch his smile before looking back down again, taking her hand off her nose and examining it to make sure there wasn't blood. She sniffed, clearing away the last of the stinging.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?"

She looked up again, really taking in the man's face this time. He was an older gentleman, with dark hair and brown eyes. The lower half of his face was peppered with facial hair, clean and cut, neatly in order like his clothing; a spotless t-shirt with well fitting pants. Definitely a savior. In her mind's eye a red flag appeared above his head.

The concern behind the question sounded genuine, despite the absolutely gleeful smile on the man's face. If she wasn't still so frazzled by what had just happened on the top floor, Sam probably would have found the man's expression a little disturbing. She didn't like it when people's faces didn't match their tone of voice. It made her uneasy.

"No, I'm fine," she said, moving to step around the man.

An arm came up, blocking her.

"Hold up a second," he said, giving her another smile. "Where's the fucking fire, sweetheart?"

Sam almost rolled her eyes. She didn't have the time for this. Each second she stayed out in the open, the more exposed she felt, and this man wasn't making her feel any more comfortable about that, regardless of his attempts to do so with his lax body language and disarming smiles. She kept her expression blank as she shook her head at him.

"I'm sorry, I have to go."

The man opened his mouth and stuck out his arm again to stop her, but Sam saw it coming and was ducking under it and making her way down the hall before he could do anything about it.

There was something laying on the floor that the man must have dropped when they collided, but she stepped over it without seeing what it was. She disappeared around the corner without looking back, walking with quick strides to the nearest maintenance closet with a vent, successfully escaping with her bounty.

* * *

 **AN: Sorry there wasn't really any Negan in this chapter either, but I wanted to further flesh out the concept of the vents and Sam's character before introducing the big man. He's definitely going to be in the next one. Thank you for your patience, it really means a lot to me! And thanks again for the reviews. I would very much appreciate more feedback with this chapter so I know to continue writing this story.**

 **Also, I don't speak Spanish so if any of the Spanish above is incorrect, please let me know in a review and I'll fix it. And again, if you came across a typo or grammar mistake, let me know!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	3. What Goes Around

**AN: Thanks so much for the reviews! I was excited to see a couple new reviewers and alerts. I very much appreciate the feedback.**

 **I'm on the look out for a beta reader for this story, so if you think you'd be interested, let me know in a review. Account owners only, though, for obvious reasons.**

 _ **Recently Re-Edited: 2/23/19**_

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead.**

* * *

 _What Goes Around, Comes Around, or, "Sam doesn't believe in karma, but coincidences can be brutal."_

~O~

"What do you mean short again?"

"I'm sorry, sir, I took inventory three times."

"Well take it again, and then keep taking it until you get it right."

"I've been coming up with consistent numbers, sir, it isn't a miscount, the supplies aren't there."

"So you're saying that you suck at your job?"

"I..."

"Because isn't it your job to make sure that nobody cheats the point system and takes more than they're owed? This is the third time this has happened in the past month. If we're still coming up short, that must mean that someone's been helping themselves to a five finger discount, and that's a major problem, isn't it?"

"Please, sir, I don't know-"

"Negan isn't going to like this. Not one bit."

Samantha sat hidden inside the marketplace vent, listening to Simon belittling the workers.

Static cut through the air; she heard him mumble under his breath, leaving to radio in. When the doors shut, the man in charge of the market let out a shaky breath, the trepidation audible even from where Sam hid. Through the grate of the vent, she could see him collapse back at his desk. He placed his clipboard down and buried his face in his hands. He sat hunched over with his shoulders drawn up to his ears, his distress obvious. Sam looked down at her lap.

A month and two weeks, people were finally starting to notice that things were going missing.

And not just the stray pack of chips or bar of soap here and there. They were taking stock and the numbers weren't adding up in a significant way.

It wasn't something that she hadn't expected to happen eventually, but she hadn't really prepared herself for the repercussions of it, mainly because they weren't happening to her. Other people were beginning to suffer because of her thieving and that was a lot harder to swallow than she thought it would be.

It was getting more difficult to reconcile her position here, to explain away with claims of necessity how much wrong she was doing by hiding in the vents. They say a conscience had no place in this new world, but empathy wasn't exactly something one could turn off and on like a switch. Though she wasn't a humanitarian, she still felt guilt. She only wanted to make her life safer - not make others' more dangerous.

The saviors were slow on the uptake, and were only just recently noticing anything suspicious with the inventory coming up short. The workers had started noticing weeks ago, possibly even since Sam first showed up. The saviors would like to think that they were on top of everything, and that the workers were just mindless drones, too overworked to think beyond how they were going to pay for their next meal, but that was a severe underestimation. The workers were closer to the ground, so to speak. Nothing went on in the lower levels of the Sanctuary that the workers didn't know about.

Word spread like the goblin virus and rumors of possible theft had surfaced long before then. It was just that nobody was saying or doing anything about it. Perhaps the workers who were directly affected by the stealing tried to figure who it was, because Sam had noticed an increase in security around the marketplace, but they hadn't been successful.

In their defense, a thief using the vents wasn't something that would occur to most people, because things like that only happened in action movies. That was what made the concept of the vents so ingenious.

How often do people notice air vents? Whether in the dentist's office, or at the mall, or even in their own homes? Like smoke detectors and circuit boxes, ventilation shafts only gained human acknowledgement when something went wrong. Otherwise, they were virtually invisible.

Eventually though, no matter how smart the idea, someone would catch on and Sam had yet to figure out what she would do when that happened. She would probably have to leave the Sanctuary and go back to living on the road until she came across another group. It wasn't the most appealing of ideas, but it was better than being killed. How she planned to get out of the Sanctuary was still up in the air, but that would have to be a bridge she would cross when she came to it. Until then, it was business as usual.

Sam exhaled through her nose as she untangled her legs. She gave the marketplace worker one last sympathetic (useless) look through the grate before crawling back down the shaft. Simon would be back to collect the man and she didn't want to see it when it happened. Hopefully, he would be given the chance to plead his case, but if not, the man would have to take a punishment that rightfully belonged to Sam.

It was only a matter of time before all this came to a head. She tried not to think about the form it would take as she crawled through the vent, having an inkling that it would be a baseball wrapped in barbwire.

~O~

The familiar atmosphere of her sanctuary inside the Sanctuary greeted her as she dropped down into the maintenance room.

It had evolved over the past month. It retained its same setup, with her sleeping bag placed behind the water barrels and the various piles of abandoned clutter littering the room, but now it had a presence to it. Sam had left her mark, filling the boarded off junk room with her collection of things.

Her inner pack-rat had the room mimicking a conspirator's den. The walls were decorated with loose leaf paper, notes scribbled in chicken scratch and pencil sketches of machinery. The walls acted as her own personal journal; every idea, every new piece of knowledge, every random stray thought found a place to live on her hideaway collage.

Her influence had even started extending past the room, staking claim on the entire hall at that point. She had learned every inch of that hall, traced it with both her hands and her steps more times than she could count. For all intents and purposes, it was hers. Though procured through dubious means, she had taken what had been abandoned and re-purposed it into something useful, a place where she could rest easy, and every precaution was taken to ensure that it was safe.

She had rigged the entire hall with trip wires, made out of common items that she had scavenged around the Sanctuary. Her room was the fourth down and on the left; each room before it was rigged with an explosive trip wire, made out of matches, firecrackers, book bag vices, sandpaper, fishing line and electrical tape. They weren't lethal like the name suggested. They were only meant to deter anyone from snooping around and wake her up if someone came into the hall while she was asleep.

It was a small device with fishing wire attached to it, placed in the doorway of a room, as close to the ground as possible. When the wire was tripped, it would pull out of the device causing the matches wrapped around it to strike the sandpaper and the firecrackers in the middle to ignite. Inside the enclosed area, the firecrackers would go off with a loud bang and a flash that would wake her up and startle the intruder. She placed a couple of them by the front of the hall so that it would give her time to escape through the vent in her room.

Her booby traps were nonlethal because she didn't want to hurt anybody, not even the saviors. The most dangerous traps she had were the planks of wood with nails sticking out of them, placed just inside her room, waiting to be stepped on by an unsuspecting intruder as a last-ditch measure.

Samantha wasn't a violent person, but she would fight for her life if she had to.

When she was first learning all of this, Sam had no idea that she would one day actually use it. Learning these skills had been partly a joke, done for fun and interest. Her dad had been friends with a survivalist and every time they visited him on the reservation, they would throw a huge BBQ and he would teach her something new.

They were mostly harmless things, like how to create a fire signal, and how to tell which way North was without navigational gear, and how to collect rainwater to drink. But occasionally, he would teach her something a little less orthodox that her mother certainly wouldn't approve of if she knew.

There was that stereotype out there that all Native Americans were noble trackers, who lived in harmony with the natural world and were unspoiled by all modern vices, and while that couldn't be accurately generalized (her dad had been hopeless - frequently regarding GPS as gospel), stereotypes tended to have a ring of truth to them. A lot of her dad's friends from his tribe were wildly resourceful people, and whether that had anything to do with their race, she couldn't say.

Regardless, she benefited from what they taught her more than she ever could have imagined. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that all these lessons were the sole reason she was still alive. Most people in the new world knew how to do these things as well, but they had learned after the fact. Sam had a head start, having been taught back when she was just a little girl.

Were booby traps a bit much? Maybe, but they were effective for someone like her. Her main method of defense was still hiding because it was the safest. She took a self-defense class during the summer before her freshman year of college, but it was bare basics like crotch-kicking and grip-breaking. Direct confrontations were a no-go. She was slim with not a lot of muscle, easy to overpower in a fight.

In addition to being so handy, her dad had also taught her how to shoot. She was a decent shot, and had even won a trophy once in a rinky-dink shooting competition at a country fair, but her aim had gotten worse since she had lost her eyeglasses. If she could get her hands on a gun she would, but the armory was locked up tight with a metal rifle cabinet covering the only air vent. Not even a wife could get in there.

Sam looked up at the windows of the maintenance room, taking in the light of dusk that filtered through the dirty glass. It was getting late, but she still had plans to take a trip to the workshop before the day ended. From what the workers were saying, it was supposed to storm tonight, so she would rather get it done before the halls got too crowded with saviors hunkering down the main building.

She stepped towards the shelf where she kept her "costume".

Despite being risky, taking the dress was the best thing that could have happened. It made moving around the Sanctuary infinitely easier, so much so that her usage of the vents were becoming far and few between. Being one of Negan's wives (or pretending to be) meant having the keys to the kingdom. She could go just about anywhere now and not be questioned for it by anyone, not even the saviors. In fact, the saviors gave her quite a wide berth when they saw her coming. It was fantastic.

But posing as a wife didn't come without its problems.

In order to really pull it off, she had to develop a new kind of confidence, different from just having a reason to be in a certain place at a certain time. She had to walk as if she was the hottest thing around, and that she deserved everything her heart desired.

Sam was given misguided respect from the other Sanctuary inhabitants because of it, respect that she in no way deserved. But then again, how much respect did Negan's actual wives deserve? Much less than what they were given, no doubt, and all because they were having sex with the boss. They weren't contributing to the community beyond that.

She had to keep a close eye out in case they saw her and realized she wasn't really one of them. Luckily, it was rare that they left the top floor for anything except food, and even then they could have trays brought to them. Anything they wanted, it was brought straight to their door, which was why sometimes Sam got weird looks from the saviors and workers when she insisted on doing things for herself. She supposed she looked very odd walking around the workshops and garages.

Getting things became easier. When it came to bathroom products and food, she no longer had to steal them as long as she wore the dress. She was given the golden ticket to the marketplace and all its old world treasures. And if she wanted to go somewhere or get something that wasn't typically meant for a wife, like duck tape or fishing line, all she had to say was: "I'm getting something for Negan", and access was granted, no questions asked. It quickly became her go-to excuse.

She had initially planned to only use it for emergencies, not wanting to try her luck, but everything had been so hard up until that point. It was too tempting not to take the easier route now that it had finally been revealed to her.

And admittedly, it gave her a sense of power using it, which she wasn't proud of but felt regardless. After weeks of watching saviors abuse their status, it felt good to give some of that abuse back by posing as one of the few people who held more authority over them. The saviors were so terrified of angering Negan that they would literally bend over backwards to get her what she wanted, especially if she claimed it was for the big man himself.

However, despite how well it worked, it wasn't perfect.

Because what would happen if she said "I'm getting something for Negan", _to_ Negan?

She would be hard pressed for a new excuse then, wouldn't she?

It was like a thrilling game of chance, if only you changed "thrilling" to "terrifying", and "chance" to "Russian Roulette". Each time this excuse formed on her tongue, any new person she was speaking to became a loaded gun.

Sam stripped off her regular clothes and took the dress from the shelf.

She had grabbed a dress that was a little more modest than what the other wives wore, one that had a wider, longer skirt and didn't cling to her thighs; it made moving around in the vents easier. The style resembled attire one would wear to a funeral rather than a saucy cocktail party, but it at least it wasn't a lacy mosquito net. Granted, it showed off a little more cleavage than what would be appropriate for great grandma's viewing, but there was simply no getting around that if she wanted to pull off a successful performance as one of Negan's wives.

The heels took getting used to again, but after walking up and down the maintenance hall a few times, she was able to fall back into practice enough to keep from breaking her ankle. She kept her hair free to better pass as a wife. It was a little longer than shoulder length with a wisp of bangs that brushed her eyelashes. It was the nicest style she could achieve without any products or accessories, and it required very little upkeep. Vanity wasn't one of her follies, so the less time she had to spend primping to look like a wife, the better.

Dressed and ready to go with her satchel, Sam made her way out of her hall, taking care to step over her trip wires. She headed for the main workshop of the Sanctuary. That was where the bulk of the industrial machinery was located, and where most of the mechanical workers were stationed. People parted like the Red Sea as she walked by them, the clicking of her heels ringing like a bell through the halls. They kept their eyes downcast while Sam kept hers ahead, walking with palpable conviction.

There was a silent understanding between the Sanctuary inhabitants and the wives: if you don't mess with me, Negan won't mess with you.

The air inside the main workshop was almost humid, a stark contrast to the ever-dropping temperature outside. The deafening sounds of running machinery and metal hitting metal assaulted her ears when she stepped inside, but it was a cacophony that was pleasing to her, like some obscure type of music that only people of the machines could appreciate.

Sam liked visiting the workshop. It reminded her of school. A few of the workers looked up as she navigated the floor, but none batted an eye at her presence. She was a familiar face in this neck of the woods, and she didn't mind. There wasn't any real danger of her field trips reaching Negan's ears. With workers like these, their stations were in the very bowels of the Sanctuary, far away from the hierarchy of the upper levels, so there was little chance that they would know how many wives Negan even had, let alone know their faces.

As she made her way towards the back where the equipment was stored, Sam noticed a savior standing with a female janitorial worker mopping the floor. As she passed, she watched as he gave the worker a smile and she giggled.

The person manning the supply counter looked up from his book as Sam approached, her heels taking his attention away from the pages of Chuck Palahniuk's _Damned_. He smiled at her, his eyes shining with mirth. His name was Ian, one of the few workers in the workshop with any formal education in engineering. He was a skinny guy in his early thirties with a quirky sense of humor and a scratchy, high-pitched voice.

"Hey, look who's back already. How are things going up in the penthouse, play bunny?"

"Swimmingly," she replied in a dry tone as she reached into her satchel and pulled out her current project. She placed it on the counter - no nonsense. "I need a battery, three resistors and a tube of compound B. Preferably all unused, if you have it."

Ian looked at the device on the counter with a curious eye, his hand coming up to grab it, but Sam slid it back towards her. She gave him an unimpressed look and he smiled in return, holding his hand up in surrender. He reached under the counter and pulled a little white tube of what looked like itching cream, sliding it over to her.

"Nice grocery list."

Sam picked up the compound and put it in her satchel, absently letting out a hum in response.

He drummed his hands against the counter. "Let me see what else I've got in stock."

On the outside, their exchange would have seemed strange. One would assume the worker was putting on a front of nonchalance to avoid trouble with his boss' wife, but they would be surprised to find out that his playful responses were very much genuine, and that this was something that happened often when she came in while he was on duty.

Ian was the only person Sam was on good terms with. He didn't seem to mind her blunt and sometimes insensitive nature. She had a very practical way of thinking and a very frank way of talking and it sometimes made her come off as callous. Ian seemed to recognize this and knew not to take any of her more brusque comments as a personal attack. He was very laidback and friendly.

She believed that behind his carefree disposition, he was a very perceptive person, but she hadn't known him long enough to draw a definitive conclusion. She did find it suspicious, though, that he had never once asked why one of Negan's wives would need electrical equipment.

At any rate, he was the most civil person she spoke to on a semi-regular basis. She had stepped on quite a few toes since she started interacting with people more, mostly by accident, but since she was a wife, nobody confronted her. Sam made horrible first impressions. Her nickname back in school wasn't "heinous bitch" among her peers because she was a joy to be around.

She crafted thoughts with facts more than opinions and took action with tactical intentions more than emotional ones. That was why she wasn't called "tough girl", instead. She wasn't the woman with the sassy attitude or badass scowl who could put men in their place. She was very unassuming and underestimated, which was why she blended in so well with the image of the submissive wives.

As she waited for Ian to return, she looked down at the rectangular device in her hands, smiling softly at it as she realized that these were the last pieces she needed to finish it. It was an ohmmeter and it had become her most prized possession.

An ohmmeter was an electrical instrument that measured electrical resistance; a handheld device that ran on a battery. It was very old with an analog, but she knew she could fix it up with the right parts. It would allow her to work on the Sanctuary's electrical system without hindrance from her color-deficiency.

Resistors were color-coded to identify their values, but the ohmmeter would measure the amount of resistance for her, making it easier than using the color-coding. Up until she found the ohmmeter, she had been using a numbering system that she had learned back in school to help with her projects. It was a silly mnemonic, like Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain for the colors of the rainbow, except more complex (there was no mnemonic for the sequence BBROYGBVGW that wasn't a mouthful), but it was better than nothing.

Wires were easier, because unlike resistors there was no color-coding value to them. Wires were typically every color out there, with no "cut the red wire to disarm the bomb" clichés to speak of.

Ohmmeters were used for electrical engineering, not mechanical, but she felt she was rehearsed enough in the area to at least be able to fiddle with the Sanctuary's lights if need be. She couldn't believe her luck when she came across the busted device in one of the lesser used workshops. It was laying on a shelf caked with grime and dust, the plastic protecting the needle cracked and the dial missing. The battery was deader than a goblin and she could barely read the number scale it was so faded, but it was still an excellent find. When she wiped it off and saw what it was, she could have sworn she heard Strauss' "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" playing somewhere in the background.

Oh yes, pretending to be a wife gave her access to all sorts of new toys. She even almost got her hands on a handheld blow torch! She could have used it to melt locks and cut through locked cases of manual mechanisms. It would have been her second prized possession if she hadn't been scared off by the sudden appearance of Dwight walking into the garage, on his way out of the Sanctuary for a supply run.

Ian came back to the counter, carrying the things she asked for in his arms. He deposited them on the counter, smirking at the way she pounced on them.

"Weren't you just in here the other day looking for a crap load of other stuff like copper wire and probes? You're going to clean me out at this rate."

"This'll be the last of it, I promise," she said, her hands coming out to snatch up her new battery with barely masked eagerness.

"Until you get your hands on a new project," he replied with amusement, scratching at the patchy facial hair on his jaw. He crossed his arms over the top of the counter and leaned against it, giving Sam a thoughtful look as she examined the materials.

"You know, you should really talk to Negan about getting yourself job down here. You seem to have more experience and passion for the machines than these yahoos, and I'm sure the boss won't mind having a working girl in his collection. Might even be a turn on."

Sam gave him another unimpressed look before going back to her device. "I'll think about it."

He chuckled, resting his chin in his folded arms, watching her work. "The resistors are new, straight from a Walmart supply run, but the battery isn't, so it's going to be a crude fit. Be careful, it might fry the second you turn it on."

Sam gave a grunt of acknowledgement as she turned over her device and pulled off the back. She took the battery Ian had given her and tried putting it in, only to find it was slightly too big. Despite her better judgment, she forced it in until she was able to put the covering back on. She turned it back around and turned it on, watching as the needle danced back and forth as the device buzzed to life.

Just as she was about to test the analog, a spark emanated from the back, startling both her and Ian. The ohmmeter slipped from her hands and on to the counter. When smoke started wafting from it, Ian grabbed it and yanked off the back. He pulled out the fried battery with careful fingers before dropping it like a hot coal. They listened to its death-hiss as they waved away the smoke.

"See, what did I tell you?" Ian coughed.

Sam glared at the battery in disappointment. "Where I can get a better one?"

"Batteries are a hot commodity around here. Whatever goes to the marketplace is gone in seconds, people using them for their junk - old walkmans, MP3's, vibrators and the like. The workshop in the west wing might have something, but if not, you could try the basement. The saviors are always throwing crap down there that they don't know the use for. You can find just about anything if you look hard enough."

"Thank you, Ian."

"Better hurry, it's getting late. You'll miss giving Negan his welcome home martini and slippers."

"Wouldn't that be a shame."

Ian chuckled again, pushing off the counter and reaching for the ring of keys on his belt. "I've got to start locking up now. See ya later?"

"See you later."

They parted ways from their own sides of the counter. Sam looked down at her ohmmeter as she walked back through the workshop.

Halfway out, her heel came in contact with something, halting her departure. She looked down to see a tool belt that belonged to the savior from earlier. Glancing around, she spotted him still talking with the same worker girl, both distracted with each other. He must have stripped it off when he went to go flirt with her. Sam eyed the belt with a devious curiosity, one of her slim eyebrows arching. The savior had his holster clipped to the belt, his handgun inside it.

Cool as a cucumber, she plucked the firearm from the holster like it was a lucky penny on the street before slipping it into her satchel and continuing on her way.

The skirt of her dress swished around her thighs and her hair bounced with each step. She was out in the commons areas now so she had to look the part, walking with confidence that she didn't really have and projecting something that she hoped had some semblance of sex appeal. The workers in her path stepped out of the way and kept their eyes down as she entered the main room of the factory, where the Sanctuary's incinerator was. People milled about the ground floor talking and working while saviors above walked along the catwalks.

From the corner of her eye, on top of the catwalk that overlooked the entire room, she saw a blur of blonde, recognizing it to be Dwight. Not changing her stride, Sam used her hair as a curtain. She noted with relief that he was talking with someone and hadn't noticed her, even with the sound of her heels cutting through the chatter of the room.

Sam picked up her pace to make it across before she drew someone's eye. It was rare to see a wife after dark. They were all usually up in their pallor by then, waiting obediently for their "husband" to come "home", and do God knows what to each other.

The young woman took out her ohmmeter and looked down at it in an attempt at being too busy to approach. Just as she left the room, the man talking to Dwight looked in her direction, catching a glimpse of her dress as she disappeared around the corner, but she didn't notice. It wasn't until she cleared the heavily occupied room that she allowed herself to slow down. Her feet were beginning to ache because of the heels and she couldn't wait to get her battery and return to her hideout where she could strip them off, letting her poor toes breath.

The west wing workshop wasn't as impressive as the main workshop, but getting materials was easier. She didn't have to consult a worker. Whatever wasn't used in the main workshop found a home here, the saviors practically dumping it into whatever available space they could find in the back rooms. She could see how laymen like the saviors might look at the dismembered parts of a machine and think it junk, but she lamented the perfectly good materials left to collect dust in forgotten rooms. Ian told her that it was his job to pick through incoming supplies and take out what was useful, but there was always a lot to sort through and the saviors weren't always patient enough to let him check everything.

The workshop wasn't really a workshop - only in name. It was just another maintenance hall with a series of storage rooms that she imagined would someday suffer the same fate as her hideaway. She took a linear approach to searching, since the workshop wasn't organized with a storage system, and picked the first door. She groaned when she saw the chaotic state the room was in.

Piles. Nothing but derelict piles of cords, wires, gears, machine parts and literal garbage.

The next hour was spent meticulously picking through storage room after storage room, all to find a measly, common household battery for her device. It was a crime, really, and if Sam had actually been a wife, she would have brought this catastrophe straight to Negan and demand something be done about it. He would have probably laughed in her face, but she would be damned if she sat by and let the Sanctuary waste good supplies just because his men were lazy.

After picking through the final storage room, Sam gave up her search, exhaling through her nose as she reached up to run a hand through her hair. There was nothing here that would work. She was going to have to go into the basement to find the part she needed.

She turned around to leave, only to jump when she saw a figure standing in the doorway. Her heart slammed against her ribcage and the small of her back connected painfully with the workshop table behind her.

"Jesus!" she gasped, slapping a hand over her pounding heart. "Don't sneak up on a person like that! What is wrong with you?"

It was a man, a savior by the looks of it. He was an older gentlemen with dark hair swept back from his forehead. The bottom half of his face was decorated with a salt and pepper beard and the corner of his eyes crinkled, betraying his seasoned age. He stood tall and lanky, taking up almost the full length of the doorway as he leaned his shoulder against it, his toned arms crossed over his chest. He wore a white t-shirt with a grey pair of pants and black boots.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a red flag sprang up in vague recognition, but Sam was surprised to find that she couldn't place him.

The man smiled, slow and wide, and if it wasn't for the incongruity of the situation, she would have thought it lit up the room, which it sort of did, but with a foreboding light, like the headlights of a speeding car barreling straight at you.

"Sorry, Darlin'," he said, amusement evident in his dark eyes. "Didn't mean to scare you."

Sam pulled her hand from her chest, shaking her head. "Don't do that with anybody who's armed, or else they might ruin your day a lot worse than I could."

The man let out a laugh at that.

Without waiting for a response she turned away from the savior, dismissing him with her back, and looked over the workshop table behind her, running her hands over the stray parts like they held great interest to her. She was stalling, but the savior standing in the doorway took up the whole space and she didn't want to squeeze past him to get by. It was getting late, but the basement could wait until he moved. As her own rule of thumb, she maintained at least five feet of space between her and the saviors at all times.

After about thirty seconds, she glanced over her shoulder to see if he was still there, and he was, still leaning against the door with a smirk. She looked away again, pretending that this wasn't bothering her, but she could feel his eyes on her, looking her up and down, studying her intently, and it was getting on her nerves. It took about a minute until she lost her patience and turned to face him again.

"Don't you have a job you're supposed to be doing right now?"

"Oh, I've got plenty to do, Sweetheart. I was just wondering what in the hell _you_ were doing."

"I'm getting something for Negan."

She expected the man to back down then, to balk and bow out like everyone else did at the sound of their leader's name. There was a silence as he looked at her in surprise, his eyebrows raising up towards his hairline.

"Is that so?" he drawled, pushing off the doorway and stepping into the room. "I wasn't aware he needed anything."

"Well," Sam breathed, thrown by his reaction, "he does and he's expecting it soon, so if you'll excuse me."

She tried moved around the man, but he stuck up an arm to block her.

She felt irritation as she stepped back, regarding him with a nettled look. If he noticed her annoyance, he wasn't bothered by it. Being this close to him, she realized how much he towered over her. Her forehead was in perfect alignment with his nose, but that was only because of her heels. If she wasn't wearing them, then he would probably be a whole head taller than her. She didn't like that. He would try to use that to intimidate her, since he was clearly blind and didn't notice her dress.

"What are you getting for Negan?" he asked, his tone light with genuine curiosity.

"Some parts for a radio. It broke and I'm fixing it for him."

"Aww," he cooed, patronizing her. "Isn't that sweet, such a good little helper. Do you even know how to work a radio, darlin'? Because fixing one isn't like spraying Windex on a dirty CD. You'll need to know how to hold a fucking screwdriver."

Anger shot through her like lightening, too strong for her to stifle. Her nose curled up and her lips pressed into a tight line. Typical arrogance, she thought, the man assuming that she couldn't fix something on her own. She wasn't sure whether it had been a stab at her gender or her age (probably both), but she was equally as insulted by his remark. Her hand tightened on the strap of her satchel, making her knuckles pale. The man's eyes flickered down at them, his eyebrow cocking.

"I think I can manage," she bit out.

His smile widened at her reaction and he chuckled, making Sam wondered if her status as a wife would allow her to get away with using a power drill to lobotomize him.

A loud roll of thunder could be heard from outside. The gust of wind that accompanied it shook the building and made the old metal groan. The interruption doused her anger enough to remind her that she had something more important to do than get talked down to by someone who probably couldn't identify half of the equipment in the room they were currently standing in, let alone fix a crummy radio.

"Look, I'd rather get this done before it starts storming and I need to go down into the basement, so if you'll let me pass, I'd appreciate it."

"The basement?" he echoed. "What a fucking coincidence, that's just where I was heading!"

She put a hand on her hip, narrowing her eyes. "No it wasn't."

"You're right, it wasn't," he admitted, "but it is now. I think I'll come with you, lend you a hand."

"I don't need any help."

"I insist, sweetheart."

"And I insist you don't, really."

The man continued to watch her with that annoying, gleeful look on his face, keeping himself placed between her and the door. Sam's hand slipped from her hip as she resisted rolling her eyes. They reached a stalemate, apparently, and neither occupant in the room seemed willing to back down. She squared her feet in silent determination as she gripped the strap of her satchel again, arching a brow at him as if to say, _'what now?_ '.

Getting the message, he rubbed his chin in thought, his tongue coming out to run across his teeth. She could hear the skin of his fingers scrapping against the coarse hairs even from where she stood, reminding her just how empty and sectioned off the west wing workshop was. A twinge of unease started to twist in her stomach. Being isolated with a savior didn't sound like a fun situation to be in, particularly _this_ savior.

He was different from the others, and it only took a few minutes of interaction for her to pick up on that. Not only was he being more persistent than what she was used to, but he projected a very strong presence. He seemed to fill the entire room, making her want to physically back up to give herself more elbow room. He had a very animated way of moving, tending to throw his whole body into the simplest gestures. On anyone else, it would have been flashy and obnoxious, but it seemed to come as natural as breathing to him.

"How about this," he proposed, "think of it as _you_ helping _me_ out."

"And how's that?"

"Well, as I'm sure you know, Negan is very protective of his wives. If you go down there in the dark and trip and scrap your knee, he won't be fucking happy about it. And if he finds out that I was the stupid asshole who let you go down there by yourself, then it's my lily white ass on the line, see?"

She crossed her arms. "Do all his wives get their own personal escort?"

"Nope, just you, sweetheart. You're special."

"Really?" she asked, dubious, "and why am I so special?"

She watched bemused as the man glanced over both shoulders, looking furtively around before turning back to her.

"Come here," he said in a hushed tone, gesturing with his hand and leaning in as if he was about to tell her a big secret.

For the sake of time and her sanity, Sam decided to humor him and took a step closer, brushing her hair back behind her ear and leaning in to meet him halfway.

"You didn't hear this from me, but word around the water cooler says that you're Negan's favorite."

Sam stepped back, her eyes widening. " _Me_? _"_

The man nodded with a comically hopeless look, holding out his arms. "Yeah, you are, so you finally see the fucking pickle I'm in, right?"

Now she knew for sure that the man was blowing smoke. She didn't know what game he was playing by pestering her like this, but he was certainly braver than any of his brethren. Sam wasn't Negan's favorite because he didn't know she existed. This man had no idea the lengths she had went to make it that way.

"Is this a come on?" she finally asked, "because I can't stress enough how much you're barking up the wrong tree."

He gave her a pout. "Aww, don't be like that, Darlin'. Don't you want to at least know my name before you reject me?"

"Can't imagine why it would matter."

"Fucking ouch, sweetheart," he chuckled. "I can see why Negan likes you so much."

"What's your name?" she asked with a sigh, trying to stay off the subject of Negan. Out of the two of them, he probably knew more about the leader than she did, and she didn't want to be backed into a corner by accidentally saying the wrong thing.

"Haven't you heard?" he held out his arms in a 'ta-da' fashion, smiling big, "I'm Negan."

The annoyance on Sam's face fell and panic gripped her heart like vice for a split second before -

"I'm Negan, you're Negan - we're all Negan!"

The man laughed then, dropping his arms and almost doubling over as if he had just told the funniest joke. Never before had Sam felt so unimpressed with someone as she did right then. Her face dropped like a brick and the man laughed even harder. Her fear dissipated and she crossed her arms again, rolling her eyes.

"Right," she huffed.

Fine, don't tell her. See if she cared.

She heard about this little name game that Negan liked to play with his followers. It had a very Charles Manson-esque vibe to it and she found it disturbing. Destabilizing individual identity for a single unified one - classic cult grooming behavior. No thank you.

"Can I know your name?" he asked, once he sobered up.

"No."

"Why the fuck not?"

She let out another sigh, gripping the bridge of her nose. "I'm really not getting rid of you, am I?"

"Wouldn't fucking count on it, no."

Sam pursed her lips, weighing her options. This man was giving her very little room to work with. He had knocked her off guard with his behavior and for once she was at a lost on how she was going to weasel her way out. Dealing with the Sanctuary pecking order must have made her lose her edge. It had been so easy to manipulate the workers and other saviors into leaving her alone, but this guy was sticking to her like glue.

She could hear the rain begin to come down outside, hitting the factory windows in a heavy sheet. Exhaling through her nose, she gave in.

"Alright, you can come with me," she said, "but just please -"

Just please, what? Be quiet? Don't attract attention to yourself? That didn't sound suspicious at all.

"Keep up," she settled on.

Smiling his most dazzling smile yet, the man finally stepped out of the way with an exaggerated bow for her to pass.

"Lead the way, Darlin'."

* * *

 **AN: It was a slow build up, but we're finally getting the ball rolling. Thanks so much for your patience. I hope to see some more reviews and meet some new readers with this chapter. Feedback is very much appreciated it! It let's me know that you guys want to see more.**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	4. The Perfect Storm

**AN: Thanks so much the reviews last chapter! I really appreciate the support and feedback. I'm still on the look out for a beta reader, so if you're interested let me know in a review. I hope you guys enjoy this one!**

 _ **Recently Re-Edited (2/25/19)**_

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead.**

* * *

 _The perfect storm, or, "Reasons why following a strange man into a dark room is a bad idea - besides the obvious."_

~O~

Despite how blasé she acted towards the situation, with every step she took towards the Sanctuary basement, Samantha was hyperaware of the person following behind her.

Her attempts to dissuade the savior had failed and now she had a tag-along that she had no idea what to do with. The older man seemed perfectly content following her and any hints she gave for him to leave passed over his head. She suspected that it was intentional, but he was a hard customer to read. Every time she looked over her shoulder at him, he was staring at her, making instant eye contact. He didn't even have the decency to look away when she caught him doing it.

After about the fourth time they ran through this unfunny sketch, she glared at him to get him to stop, but he only responded with a cheeky wink and a slow, brazen smile splitting his face. Sam let out a frustrated huff and looked forward again. She walked faster to put more distance between them, but he easily matched her quick steps with his long strides. He walked with a curious swagger. Nothing ridiculous, but one that suggested a powerful confidence and sense of self-control. She felt like a cartoon character walking down a corridor with him, her feet stuffed tight into tiny heels like Betty Boop. Ridiculous.

And it wasn't like she wasn't aware he was staring at her butt just as much as he was the back of her head.

Sam had never felt so uncomfortable in her life, and she felt worse knowing that she only had herself to blame for it. Here she thought she could manipulate anyone in the compound (because she had been doing it for over a month), but as soon as a challenge comes along, she finds herself with a field trip buddy? She was better than that. She was going to have to be if she wanted to shake him after getting her battery, or else he might follow her home like a puppy.

The corridor they were walking down led to an old elevator that the savior said would take them to the basement. Sam would have rather taken the stairs, but she was getting too tired to argue, and against her better judgment, she let the man lead her into the elevator. It didn't look up to code, but if she were to be morbidly practical about it, she had a higher chance of crashing and dying in the van that she had stowed away in than she did dying in the elevator. Only twenty-six people die in elevators each year in America. Twenty-six people die in car crashes every five hours.

Well...she supposed the statistics on that had dropped a bit, but the point still stood.

The elevator made her wonder just how old the factory was. The engineer in her took satisfaction in knowing that even the oldest buildings could withstand "The End" much better than humans could. It begged more appreciation for the art of engineering and architecture. So much of the old world had been taken for granted, more than just running electricity, markets full of fresh produce and being on top of the foodchain. Even if the elevator was old, it was still a marvel of technology to Sam.

"This piece of crap is slow as balls, but it'll get us down there," her companion said, stepping in after her. "Pardon my fucking reach."

Sam was forced to lean back when the savior ostentatiously leaned over into her space to get to the elevator's panel on the other side of her. He stood so close that there was barely an inch between them. She knew he had done it on purpose. No man so aware of himself would make that big of a miscalculation.

She craned her head back to see his face and he smiled impishly down at her, the spicy smell of cologne and aftershave filling her senses and aggravating her headache. He took his time pressing the button and stepping back over to his side of the elevator.

When he caught the look she gave him, he shrugged his lanky shoulders.

"I like pressing the button."

The gated elevator door closed with a rusty shriek, enclosing them in the small space together. It took several seconds before the mechanism gave an almighty heave before descending. Sam wanted to groan when she realized the savior had been right; the elevator moved at a snail's pace.

The savior leaned back against the railing, at ease as he tapped his long fingers on the metal in time with the overhead music. Sam was visibly more tense, choosing to stand with her heeled feet pressed together, her back straight with ramrod posture and her arms crossed over her chest. She made sure to stand with as much space between her and the man as possible, not caring if he thought her standoffish. She did everything she could to demonstrate with her body language that she did not appreciate his presence here. It was the perfect image of that scene in movies where the motley crew of characters stood awkwardly together in an elevator with the ironic, easy-listening music playing in the background.

Yellow Submarine by the Beatles came on over the intercom, the voice of Ringo Starr distorted with static by the poor reception. The savior started humming along with it in his deep baritone as they continued to descend.

"You know," he began after another minute of uneasy quiet, clearing his throat, "back when the world first went to shit, I heard rumors about how all this might've started and the emergency plans to evacuate survivors. I never paid much attention to them because I knew they were a load of horseshit, but I came across this one ridiculous bastard who claimed that the US government had these huge fucking submarines in every major port in the country where they've taken all the top scientists, politicians and celebrities only, leaving the rest of us to fucking die. Supposedly the subs are stocked with enough food and supplies to last a decade."

"I heard that our alien creators already took all the survivors they wanted before the virus hit, if the last cry of Scientology can be believed."

"Think we should build a submarine, darlin'? Join Kim Kardashian and Bill Nye the science guy beneath the waves?"

"It's a good idea as any, I suppose."

"Do you think we _could_ build a submarine?"

Sam pursed her lips, thinking about it for a second. She could write an entire dissertation on why they couldn't build a submarine with the world being the way it was, but just to name a few reasons off the top of her head:

"Probably not. Assuming that you'll want to take everyone in the Sanctuary, you would need to build a structure that not only can sustain so many people for an extended amount of time, but you would need to design it to be able to withstand the weight of the water, as well as several other combining factors. But, if you were thinking about only taking a select few, you'd probably hit a roadblock in the construction with a CO2 scrubber because you won't find one of those anywhere around here."

"What's a CO2 scrubber?"

"If you don't limit the Carbon Dioxide in the air supply in a submersible, you'll suffocate on the fumes. A CO2 scrubber treats the air. You'd need a submarine where the CO2 build up would limit the submersible period, and ten years is a long submersible period. You can typically find them in airtight chambers like air and spacecrafts. So unless Negan has a rocket ship stashed somewhere that we don't know about, I doubt we'll be setting sail anytime soon."

"Hm."

"It's a nice idea, though," she added softly as a second thought.

The worsening ache in her feet and spine finally had her leaning back, joining him against the railing with a sigh.

They lapsed back into silence. Sam leaned further against the fenced backing of the elevator, craning her head and closing her eyes. Fatigue was creeping up fast. This had been the most time she had ever spent out of her hideaway. She could feel the blisters on her feet forming and the fluorescent lights of the Sanctuary were starting to get to her. The relentless hum they gave off was becoming ingrained in her ears drums and the lighting irritated her deficiency. She was a little more sensitive to bright lights than other people because of it, and it made her remember why she was able to adjust to the darkness of the vents so easily.

The grinding of the old elevator's mechanism lulled her into a sense of calm and she almost forgot that she wasn't alone.

"What's your name?"

Almost.

She opened her eyes and turned her head to give him a withered look.

He smiled at her, trying to look cheeky and charming. "Our submarine's got to have a name."

She turned away and closed her eyes again. The savior frowned, taking it as her stonewalling again, but after a pause, she answered.

"Samantha."

"So the SS Samantha, then." The savior made a contemplative noise, working his jaw as he mulled it over like a piece of candy on his tongue. "I like it. Its gotta nice ring to it."

She didn't know what compelled her to give the savior her actual name, other than the realization that this was the most interesting conversation she has had with anybody in months. His crude language grated on her nervous, making her flinch at the abuse of the English language, but at least it made her take notice. Most of time when people spoke to her, she tuned them out until they sounded like the parents from the Peanuts movies.

He gave Sam her peace for the rest of the elevator ride. All ten seconds of it. When the elevator finally came to a stop, the gate opened up to darkness, leaving only the bulb over their heads as light.

"You wouldn't happen to have a flashlight on you, would you?" Sam asked, her voice echoing out as they peered into the basement, trying to sort through the blackness for any discernible shapes.

"Does it look like I have a fucking flashlight on me?" the savior shot back, gesturing down at his body.

"You don't have to curse at me, I was only asking."

"How in the shit did those asswipes get these lights off? I thought they went off and on with the lights on the main floor. I've been down here a million fucking times and not once have I seen a goddamn light switch, the fuck."

"They do sync with the main floor, but the building runs on a grid of interconnected systems. You can shut down power to individual sections to save electricity from the main power box upstairs without shutting off everything in the building."

"Jesus, you're like Wikipedia with tits - which is a fucking kickass idea now that I think about it, but let's get these on before I trip on something and sprain my dick."

Sam's nose curled up at his remark, choosing not to dignify it with a response. She wondered if he was he always this crude. It seemed excessive and detrimental to any conversation this man would have, but maybe language skills weren't as high on his list of priorities right now. Despite being more garish than the others, the man didn't seem any less brutish so perhaps the slow reversion back to caveman times wasn't as big of a loss to him as it was to her.

Or maybe Apocalypse Sam was an even bigger prude than Regular Sam, which was a weird direction to go in, even for her.

"Better get maintenance down here," the savior mumbled.

He reached for the radio on his belt, but Sam held up her hand.

"I've got it. There should be a breaker box somewhere close by."

Reaching into her satchel, she pulled out her pen light. It wasn't the most convenient light source, meant for more precise and focused lighting than widespread, but it would at least keep her from tripping. The click of the pen light echoed through the basement and Sam flashed the ground in front of her.

"Stay here," she told the savior.

"Sure thing," he replied, amusement in his tone.

She stepped out of the elevator, leaving the savior to watch the skirt of her dress sashay with each step and the subtle outline of her ass underneath it until the darkness swallowed her up.

The basement was tread through enough by workers and saviors, she didn't have to worry about walking face first into any spider webs. She took care to step over cords and boxes as she went. It wasn't easy and her heels weren't doing her any favors, but she managed to find a fenced in corner of the basement where she knew the breaker box would be. She shined her pen light through the chain link and spotted it on the back wall.

The breaker was standard issue. A grey box with a collection of black switches inside, all labeled different sections of the factory with masking tape and blue magic marker. They were all rigged to be locked in place with metal wiring except for the one labeled "basement". Sam reached out and ran her fingertip over the label.

"Honestly, with how outdated this factory is, I half expected it to be powered by a long-legged Mary Ann," she said to herself.

"A fucking what?" she heard the savior call out.

"Nothing."

She grabbed the basement breaker and switched it on with a resonating click. The lights flickered overhead, buzzing to life and banishing the darkness into the smallest recesses of the basement. Her light sensitive headache spiked at the sudden transition from dark to light, but it was a fair trade to be able to see again.

Not that the Sanctuary basement was really a sight worth seeing. It looked like the birthplace of Anthrax. The walls were white, but time and weather had the paint chipped off. Long trails of dried rust ran down the brick from the network of pipes where rainwater and metal combined.

To Sam the rust stains looked a sickly green, oozing down like slime straight out of a Goosebumps book. Stray piles of garbage and equipment cluttered up the space, turning it into a maze of storage. Puddles of water gathered on the concrete floor and she could hear more water from the storm seeping in through the cracks of the factory's foundation, dripping somewhere in the distance. The air was musty and she could see the particles of dust and asbestos floating around.

She sniffed contemptuously before making her way back to the elevator. The savior was still waiting where she had left him, watching her approach with a thoughtful look on his face. She ignored it, looking up at the lights above her head.

"Let there be light," she mumbled, more to herself.

"Flipping a switch? Hell, I could've done that."

"Yes, but it was better if I did it. There's a lot of rusty stuff down here and I doubt you've been vaccinated for Tetanus because of your seasoned age, so you're welcome."

The savior cocked a brow at her, surprised by her gall. "You calling me old, sweetheart?"

"I never said 'old'."

"Well, 'seasoned' isn't fucking flattering, either."

"Would you rather get Lockjaw?"

"I'd rather get what we fucking came here for and get the fuck back up to civilization - and for your information, sweetheart, I have been vaccinated for Tetanus, fuck you very much. I was born in the 60's, not the fucking Dark Ages."

Sam ignored the "we" in his statement as she put her pen light back. She turned and began navigating the basement floor, weaving her way through the labyrinth as she studied everything she passed, cataloging it for future reference. The prize was still a battery, but she may have to come back down here and it would be better to get a layout of everything now. There was too much to sort through in the main area of the basement, but there were individual work stations setup in some of the backrooms. Sam decided to try there first.

She reached into her satchel and pulled out her ohmmeter. The needle danced behind the plastic covering and the back was still stained with soot from Ian's fried battery. She used the flap of her bag to clean it off as she walked towards one of the backrooms. As she came to a door and opened it, she heard the savior behind her let out a sigh.

"Alright, I think it's time we cut the bullshit, Darlin'. I might not be Thomas fucking Edison, but I know that's not a fucking radio. Do you think I'm some kind of idiot? Because your story has a whole lotta fucking holes in it, girly."

She stopped in the doorway, one hand resting on the frame while the other gripped her ohmmeter. She turned to look back at him with her face pensive. There was no point in keeping up the charade; she had gotten where she needed to be.

"Fine," she said. "The parts aren't for Negan, they're for me. I'm working on a personal project and I didn't want anybody crowding me while I was finishing it."

"What kind of personal project?"

She turned away and stepped into the room. "You're crowding me."

There was a three step staircase just inside the room. The old wood creaked underneath her heels, but held her weight and the savior's behind her when he followed. She reached up and pulled on the chain to turn on the light bulb in the room.

"You have a shit poor attitude, you know that?"

"I've been told," Sam replied as her calculating eyes scanned the room.

The walls were wet and covered with mildew. It was unremarkable, nothing of real note in it except a workshop table pushed against the farthest wall with a standard tool rack and drawers. Parts laid scattered over the top, but not cluttering. Sam walked over with a silent prayer, hoping against hope that she would find what she was looking for. The savior was thankfully silent behind her, milling about the room in bored exploration while she searched.

The tabletop hailed no success, and neither did the first couple of drawers she opened, but finally, _finally_ , in the very last drawer, laying under an owner's manual for an air conditioning unit from the 70's, Sam found a battery. She resisted shouting in triumphant as she snatched it up.

Depositing it on the tabletop, she flipped over her device and pried open the back. The battery fit right in. It powered up beautifully and Sam couldn't fight the smile that broke across her face. Now that the device had power, she could recalibrate it. Her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth as she pulled off the device's front and began poking around in its innards like a schoolchild dissecting a frog.

"Jesus, are you almost done?" the savior spoke up, reminding her of his presence. "I feel like I've got fucking mold growing in my throat breathing in this gracias-nasty ass air."

Sam had the trappings of a workaholic so it didn't come as a surprise that she got very irritated when her concentration was broken by outside distractions, and the savior was nothing but. Hearing him prattle on about nonsense and kicking around machine parts while she was trying to focus pushed the young woman on to her last nerve. Reaching her breaking point, she slammed her ohmmeter firmly down on the workshop table, cutting of the savior in mid sentence with the hollow bang it produced.

He turned to look at her, but Sam stayed facing the table, her nails digging into her device.

"What the fuck is your-"

"I am trying to work!" She whirled around to glare at him. "If you don't like it down here, then leave. This isn't your business anyways."

A tense silence followed but Sam didn't care. She turned back to the table and worked on her device again, picking up and putting down tools with more force than what was necessary.

There was a dirty hubcap propped up against the tool rack on the table and she could see the savior in the reflection. She could feel his stare burning into her back. Somehow through her anger, she looked up from her device and studied the man, waiting to see what he would do. Tall and imposing, he watched Samantha severely.

After a full minute of not moving, he slowly reached up and tapped the light bulb with his finger, making it swing back and forth as the chain clinked against the delicate glass.

From the reflection in the hubcap, Sam could see his looming figure standing in the middle of the room, his arm still raised as they were draped in intervals of light and darkness. He had a nasty smirk on his face that only grew more wicked each time the bulb swung forward to give light. The temperature seemed to drop and the air felt thinner as a horrible feeling crept over her. It was foreboding, like seeing the grim reaper in the rearview mirror of your car just before crashing. She watched as his easygoing nature turned absolutely predatory in the span of about two seconds.

"Oh, honey, everything that happens under _my_ roof is my fucking business."

He looked like a big game cat, muscles coiled under his white t-shirt as he smiled that fiendish smirk. She gave no indication that she could see him, but her working hands came to a gradual stop the longer this went on. Her body seemed to be a few steps ahead of her brain because her eyes were dancing over the table top, searching for something to use as weapon even though her mind had yet to fully perceive the threat.

She used her body to shield her hand as her fingers ran along the table, inching closer to a pipe wrench. The hair on the back of her neck raised as she felt a shift in the air. The man moved in the hubcap, his image stretching out into a blur of white and grey. He stalked towards her, footsteps on concrete echoing in the dark expanse of the basement room. Samantha felt trapped in the small space, but also unhinged to stable grounding, lost in a nonstructural limbo with a demon intent on devouring her unsuspecting soul.

In the distorted reflection of the hubcap, he looked like the Crooked Man. Long-limbed and terrifying, birthed from the shadows of the swinging light bulb. The distortion made his teeth look sharp and his eyes obsidian black. He had morph into his true form right before her. She tensed, her breathing ragged and near audible as he came to a stop just behind her, so close that she could feel the heat radiating from his chest through both of their clothing. The scent of his cologne invaded her nose again, making a roll of dread churn her stomach. Her mouth went cotton dry and her eyes blinked rapidly as she tried to process what was happening while moisture gathered along her lashes.

Her trembling fingers finally reached the cold metal of the wrench, the tips just barely grazing the handle. His cheek brushed her hair, the strands snagging on his beard as he leaned in.

"In case you haven't caught on," he whispered, his breath tickling her ear, "I'm actually fucking Negan."

Gripping the wrench tight, Sam spun around and swung it with both hands. She aimed for his head with all her might, but Negan had anticipated the move and grabbed her wrist, throwing off her trajectory with the hit landing somewhere around his collarbone instead. He let out a grunt as his other hand came up to join the first. Sam tried to fight him off, but he was stronger than he looked. He gripped her wrist so hard, she feared it would snap clean in half. She pulled her arms back to break free but he held tight, coming with her and using his weight to dominate her.

"Fucking drop it!" Negan roared, squeezing her wrists harder to get her to let go of the wrench.

She held on until the crushing pressure became too much. The tool slipped from her fingers and hit the floor with a clatter.

Keeping his hold, Negan struck out his boot and kicked it away. The action made his grip on one of her wrists loosen and Sam was able to get her arm free with a hard yank. They struggled for the upper hand again, Sam trying to break away while Negan demanded submission. He went to grab her arm again, but she pulled her arm back out of his reach before bringing it under his own arm and then up. The maneuver allowed her to get at his unprotected front and she lashed out at his face, sinking her nails in.

He yelled and reared back his head, his hold on her other arm slipping as her nails bit in just above his eye. She pulled her arm back and used both to shove Negan as hard as she could. He stumbled backwards into an awkward misstep that had him careening to the side and into the wall.

Sam used the opening to run past him, but Negan recovered fast and was on her again. He snatched a handful of her hair before she could get far. A scream lodged in her throat at the pain erupting along her scalp as her hands came up to claw at his fingers. Negan yanked her back, bodily throwing her backwards into the workshop table. She let out a cry as the small of her back came in harsh contact with the table.

The table slammed against the back wall, knocking tools off the hooks and broken parts on to the ground. The move left her stunned and she fell to the ground before she could grab the table. Her knees and palms hit the wet concrete first before her arms failed to hold up her weight and she landed on her side.

She laid there, reorienting herself before sitting up. The ground scraped against the exposed skin of her arms and legs. Her heels had fallen off in the struggle and were now stewed across the room, along with her satchel. Negan's shadow fell over her as she held her head, pressing her palm against her forehead to stop the world from spinning.

"Oh my goodness!" he bellowed as he stood above her, drawing the words out. "Look at you! And here I was thinking that there was some big, fugly rat sneaking around my Sanctuary and taking my shit, but you're just an itty bitty mouse, aren't ya?"

Her chest heaving, she glared up at him through her dark, disheveled hair. He chuckled slow and lazy at her, his tongue pressing up against his teeth. He reached up with his fingers and touched the scratches on his face. There were four of them above his left eye, long, angry red lines where her nails dug into his skin and dragged down.

Sam looked down at her hand and saw the red under her fingernails. He overpowered her, but if she died tonight she took satisfaction in knowing that she was able to leave a mark on him.

"Fuck," he hissed, pulling his fingers away to see a bit of blood on them. "Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck you got me good."

He didn't sound angry, but he didn't sound amused. Sam watched as he reached behind his back and pulled out his radio.

"Dwight," he spoke into it. He released the button and waited for a response, but only static came through. "Dwight? You there?"

Static. It must be the storm outside, or even the basement that was messing with the reception. Sam took the distraction to look at the ground around her. Negan had kicked the wrench halfway across the room and out of reach, but she spotted her satchel laying only a few feet away. Not close enough to grab it from where she was, but if she was able to move closer without Negan stopping her, she could get to it.

"Piece of shit," Negan mumbled, shaking his head.

Sam sat up more as he put his radio back on his belt. She watched him like a hawk, her eyes wide with barely restrained panic as she waited for him to make a move. He continued to stand over her. His eyes danced over her fallen form as he sucked air through his teeth. She didn't dare move. She was facing down a venomous snake and one wrong move would have its fangs sinking into her leg. She needed to be smart about this. Her options looked grim and there was a very likely chance that tonight would be her last night on earth, but if she kept her wits about her, she wouldn't have to die in a moldy basement like a rat.

"So," Negan said, holding out his arms, "here we are. Fucking finally."

Sam stayed silent. Her chest still heaved from their struggle and the sound of her breathing filled the room. Negan looked more composed than her, with the exception of his disheveled clothing and scratches. His perfectly groomed hair stuck up in places and his dark eyes were wild with the promise of violence and excitement. Still, when he spoke, he managed to sound like the reasonable one.

"Now, this can go either one of two ways for you. You can gave up right fucking here and let me take you back upstairs without a fight, and maybe - big fucking maybe - I'll go easy on you. Or, you can keep acting tough and I'll drag your ass back up there, kicking and screaming. Personally, I recommend the former, because if you go with the latter, I think it's pretty fucking fair to say that things could get a little rough for you and I won't be held accountable for my actions."

He smirked down at her, taking a step closer.

"So make this easy on the both of us, Samantha. What's it going to be?"

He caught the moment of her decision, the subtle intake of breath and tension in her limbs. With the arm that wasn't holding her up, Sam grabbed a handful of loose dirt from the ground and threw it at him. Negan turned his head as it hit his chest, staining the front of his white t-shirt.

It was an act of defiance, her final answer. She braced herself.

Negan sighed, rolling his eyes as he brushed off his shirt.

"Alright, have it your way."

His face dropped and he moved. He advanced quick, striking out to grab her. Sam rolled on to her stomach and lunged for her satchel, her fingers tangling up in the strap just as Negan's hand wrap around her ankle. She yelped as he dragged her across the ground, scuffing her knees and elbows further, but she didn't release her grip on her bag. She reached inside and grabbed the handgun she had taken earlier. She rolled on to her back and pulled the gun out, brandishing it at her attacker.

Negan froze with his hand still on her ankle as the safety clicked off.

With the barrel aimed between his eyes, he stared down it with a murderous glare, his handsome face twisting into something ugly. Sam jerked her leg to dislodge his fingers before reaching up with her free hand to grip the edge of the workshop table behind her.

"Get back," she commanded as she pulled herself up on to her bare feet.

To her surprise, he did, but he didn't hold his hands up or react in any outward way other than glare at her like he wanted to see her lynched. He believed she would shoot him if he made the wrong move, believed she was at least capable of pointing a gun in his direction and pulling the trigger, but he didn't seem concerned that she would shoot him for anything other than in self-defense. She kept the gun and her eyes trained on him as she reached down to pick up her satchel with her free hand.

The gun wasn't as steady in her grip as she would have liked, but she didn't doubt that Negan could already tell how terrified she was. She made no effort to hide it. She never did. Ninety-nine point nine percent of the time, she was terrified, running on fear and adrenaline, but Sam was at her best under pressure and she knew how to work through it without letting it overcome her. She was scared, but she was brave.

She held out her hand, her palm upturned.

"Give me your radio."

Negan reached behind him and took his radio off his belt, tossing it to her without a word of protest. His compliance unsettled her. She caught the radio and it went into her satchel with the rest of her things.

With their eyes still locked, Samantha began to back up towards the door, glancing back only to make sure she wouldn't run into the stairs. The gun was held out in front of her with her left hand while her right clutched the strap of her bag. Negan watched her go with his arms hanging limp at his sides, the expression on his face unreadable.

As she stepped out of the room, she heard him call out:

"You're not getting out of here, little mouse. I can fucking guarantee you that!"

Slamming the door shut, she grabbed an old pipe laying nearby. She lodged it underneath the handle of the door and braced it against the ground, barricading it shut. The pipe was put in place not a second too soon because a sudden force on the other side of the door slammed against it. Sam gasped and jumped back, holding up the gun out of instinct as she watched Negan try to break his way out of the room. The pipe held strong, though. He wasn't going anywhere.

Sam took off across the basement, weaving back through the storage maze as quick as she could. The sound of Negan repeatedly throwing his weight against the door still echoed out, but she didn't dare look back as she made for the staircase, throwing the door open. Her movements were clumsy. The concrete bit into the bottom of her feet and more than once she stubbed her toe on a step and fell, but she crawled back up until finally reaching the top.

She ran back into the corridor that led to the elevator, bolting past it. She didn't stop until she was more than several hallways over from where she came up. The halls were empty and Sam was able to duck into the first room without being seen. It was one of the ladies' restrooms. The door hinges squeaked loudly as she pushed open the swinging door and collapsed inside. She fell to the dirty floor a heaving mess, nearly hyperventilating. She sat kneeling, her arms braced against the ground and her head hanging as she gasped for breath.

 _'Breathe...breathe...breathe..._ '

Her heart pounded in her chest like a pow wow drum. Reality came crashing down over her ears as she realized that she had just come face to face with the Sanctuary's infamous leader, and that she had locked him in a smelly basement after scratching his face and stealing his radio.

Things had gone to hell in a hand basket so fast, it literally left her head spinning. The world around her was on fast forward, speeding through at an incomprehensible pace. Her body went rigid, knowing that the despite narrowly escaping Negan's clutches, the crap had yet to truly hit the fan. The leader wouldn't be stuck down there forever. Negan's presence in the Sanctuary was far too ubiquitous to go unmissed for very long. A hellfire hurricane was surely on the horizon and Samantha needed to get to the eye of the storm before she burned.

She picked her brain, tracking down where everybody of importance currently was at that moment. She looked back on all the behaviors she had observed during her time in the vents. From basic Sanctuary operations, she knew that the final run of supplies was supposed to come in tonight, and she had heard that Negan usually went out to oversee the unloading and get a report from Simon. She had maybe fifteen, twenty minutes tops before anybody came looking.

She looked down at the gun in her hand. Three options came to mind.

She could use the gun to shoot her way out of the Sanctuary, but that was failure to launch. Negan's sheer manpower alone would smother any chances of escaping and she was forced to check out Bonnie Parker style in stag.

There was the option of saving the ammo and going a different route in case by some insane stroke of luck she managed to escape the compound alive. If she got out, she would need something to defend herself with against the goblins and Negan's men if they caught up to her. She would be living off virtually nothing out there and she would need to make every bullet count.

Then there was always the grim option of using the gun to shoot herself in the head, saving herself the suffering and robbing Negan of his chance to kill her. It sounded tempting, especially since Negan liked to use his baseball bat on the people who had severely crossed him. She knew he would be pissed about her skipping out on a meeting with his beloved Lucille.

But, however neat it would be to ruin Negan's day from beyond the grave, she didn't want to die. This wasn't the first time this option had been available to her, but Sam knew she could never follow through with it unless she was staring down a horde of goblins coming to rip her apart. The second option won, much like she knew it would. The jig was finally up and now Sam needed to prepare herself to fight her way out of the Sanctuary.

The gun found a place in her satchel along side Negan's radio and her ohmmeter. She would need a new weapon. Her eyes scanned the restroom, seeing nothing but dirty sinks and an empty paper towel dispenser before settling on the mirror that ran the full width of the restroom. Her reflection looked back at her; black hair a tangled mess, her skin tacky and covered in grime. The poor-quality, fluorescent lights above made her complexion pale and clammy, almost like a goblin's.

With melancholy, she tried to remember if this was what her younger self pictured when she used to be tormented by the popular girls during recess. When they would lock her in the bathroom with the lights off, forcing her to play Bloody Mary and refuse to let her out until she was screaming and pounding on the door hard enough to make her hands bleed.

 _'If I turn off the lights and say Bloody Mary three times, will she give me a quicker death than Negan?_ ' she thought.

Her eyes stung as she stared at herself, blue orbs becoming glassy. She blinked and tears tracked down her face, washing away some of the dirt. She sucked in a shuddered breath, allowing herself a moment to grieve her own soon-approaching death.

When the moment was over, Sam wiped her tears away leaving smears on her cheeks. She turned from the mirror and stepped into one of the toilet stalls, grabbing the tiny trash can screwed to the wall. She yanked it out with a ferocious display, the rusty screws no match for her strength. She came back out and pitched the trash can at the bathroom mirror. The can impacted with a loud bang and the mirror shattered.

Carefully stepping around the sharp jigsaw pieces decorating the tiled floor, Sam grabbed a shard of broken mirror and clutched it like a knife as the restroom lights glared off its reflective surface. She reached down to pick up her satchel and put it back on her shoulder.

With one last breath, she pushed open the restroom door and stepped out.

* * *

 **AN: This chapter and the next one were actually meant to be one chapter, but it ran a bit too long so I decided to cut them in half. Plus, I wanted to draw out the cat and mouse chase for just a little while longer.**

 **Hope you guys enjoyed the new chapter. I always appreciate feedback!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	5. The Chase

**AN: Special thanks to Dawn, Leah and Deanna Price for reviewing last chapter, and thanks for the added favorites and alert lists. I really appreciate the feedback. I hope you all enjoy the new chapter.**

 **And also, just as an interesting tidbit, I was listening to the soundtrack for the new "Alien: Covenant" movie while writing this, particularly "The Medbay" (composed by Jed Kurzel). So if you're looking for music to set the atmosphere.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead.**

* * *

 _The Chase, or, "Negan didn't appreciate being locked in a basement"_

~O~

Samantha raced back to her hideaway.

The workers in the hallways gave her curious looks as she passed them, but she didn't slow down. Her window of opportunity was very limited. She couldn't waste time on keeping up her façade. There was no point to it anymore. By the end of the night, everybody would know that she wasn't who she pretended to be. She would become infamous. Her name would be the one they only dared to whisper. The name that would follow the notorious Lucille's as newcomers were warned of the full brunt of their leader's explosive wraith. She would be the next cautionary tale. The next Spider and the Fly, starring Negan and herself respectively. _Le Petit Chaperon Rouge_ for the apocalyptic age.

True to form, her downfall was her overconfidence and ambivalence. She allowed the gentlemanly spider - the big bad wolf - the Pied Piper - to lead her into ruin. She was a story worthy of Hilaire Belloc. Little Sammy Wake, the girl who lived in the walls of perdition, took too many steps out, lured by the devil, and was torn apart by his vampire bat while he grinned with malicious glee. Instant classic.

One of the saviors she passed tried to stop her, noticing her obvious distress. He put down the rain tarp he was carrying and held up his hands for her slow down, genuine concern marring his features, but she pushed past without a glance, ignoring his calls for her to wait.

Barefooted, hair a mess, dress covered in grime, shins and elbows scraped from tip to hilt; she didn't blame him for trying to stop her. It wasn't everyday that one of Negan's wives could be seen running through the halls, looking like she had just played a competitive game of Twister with a goblin.

The thunderstorm was raging outside, the wind and rain crashing against the main building, making the windows shudder. Saviors crowded the halls and common rooms as they finished bolting down the compound while the workers made their way to their rooms for curfew. Sam ducked into the first maintenance closet she could find that wasn't being ransacked by a savior. She pulled out the screws and climbed inside the vent, putting the grate back in place behind her before crawling towards the east wing.

The air inside the shaft was drafty and the metal was cold to the touch. It gave the damaged skin of her scratched shins some relief, but gooseflesh erupted along her arms and she shivered. It was going to be freezing outside, she could already tell. She would have to change into something warm once she got to her hideaway, or else life beyond the compound was going to be even harder. Autumn was creeping up fast, and since the world had fallen the winters have been harsh.

Sam navigated the ventilation system until she made it back to her hideaway. She kicked open the grate and jumped down. Another shudder racked her body as her feet landed in water. It came up to her ankles and covered the floor. Her sleeping bag and the notes left scattered around were a sopping mess in the corner, along with all her clothes that she had left on the ground next to her shelf of books and manuals. The storm must be causing the older parts of the main building to flood. She groaned in frustration, swashing through the water as she reached into her satchel and pulled out Negan's radio.

Switching it on and placing it on a high surface, she listened to the saviors' operations as she tore through her hideaway looking for supplies. She grabbed a pair of boots and slipped them on her feet, but the water had soaked all of her clothes. She held up one of her shirts, dripping wet, before dropping it back in the water with a splash. Changing was a no go. There was not enough time to track down something else to wear. She needed to get only the important stuff and leave.

The only thing that was still dry was an old cargo jacket that she had found in the market. It was two sizes too big and frayed at the ends, but it was better than nothing. She slipped it on over her dress, letting it hang open.

Pens and a pad of paper found its way into her satchel, along with a compass, a roll of gauze, a rusty Swiss army knife, a box of matches, a can of chicken noodle soup, a half-full bottle of water and an Altoids peppermint can filled with safety pins and sewing needles. Everything else she would need to leave behind.

If she had the time mourn then she would have. Her hideaway had truly become a home, however strange that sounded. It was the first place in a long time where she had felt safe, even if it was inside a community run by a smiling maniac. It was her space and she was going to feel the hurt of losing it later when she was back to living off practically nothing.

The feed from the radio offered up nothing out of the ordinary until Simon's voice spilled from the speakers, his transmission making Sam's blood run cold.

 _'This is Simon. Anybody know where Negan is? He was supposed to meet me out by the gate with the Hilltop offering, but he was a no-show. Dwight?_ '

From where she crouched, packing her satchel, Sam turned towards the radio, her heart pounding in her ears.

 _'This is Dee. I haven't seen him.'_

 _'Is he with his wives?'_

 _'I don't know. Standby.'_

She packed the rest of her supplies with renewed urgency. Twenty minutes after locking him in the basement, Negan's disappearance was being noticed. Her window shrunk about a quarter in size. There was the small hope that they wouldn't find him trapped in the basement until Sam was already long gone, but people had seen Negan and her head down that way not too long ago, workers who would relay what they saw without hesitation if the saviors started asking questions. She couldn't rely on dumb luck or off-chances anymore. She needed to move as if Negan was right on her heels, because he might soon be.

She needed a plan. She needed to think. Negan aside, what else was an immediate threat?

The saviors, definitely. The workers, not so much.

The workers weren't allowed to carry weapons, and once word got around that there was an intruder, they would have to stay in their rooms until the problem was dealt with. Negan was a malevolent tyrant if she ever did see one, but he at least provided his followers with some protection, enacting a curfew and issuing lockdowns during a crisis for their safety. Unless they tried to catch Sam themselves to score brownie points with Negan, which was a possibility (drowning man clutches at straws and such), she should only have to worry about the saviors.

Easier said than done. They were many and they were mean. The saviors were cockroaches and the Sanctuary was their disgusting nest. Poke it with a stick and they all come crawling out in hordes of glossy brown shells and flexing mandibles. Not quite a nuclear disaster, but they were still the pests that survived the end of the world, and the only insect that could make Sam shiver with revulsion - and this was a girl who had two pet tarantulas as a kid.

This was where the vents would be the most useful they have ever been, because once Negan was found and an alert was raised, the Sanctuary would be crawling with saviors looking for her. She was going to have to rely on them one last time to get her through this and escape.

There wasn't really the option of staying in the vents until things quieted down enough to sneak out. Negan was going to be looking for an explanation for how Samantha was able to move around the Sanctuary undetected and take things from highly secured areas like his private floor. Eventually he was going to make the connection between her and the vents, and the last thing she needed was to be inside them when that happened. He could seal off all the openings except for one and wait her out with lack of food and water, or smoke her out by turning up the temperature to an unbearable heat until she came crawling out right into his hands.

There was no choice other than to leave now. The saviors would be patrolling the halls, but if she was smart and used the resources available to her, there was a chance she could make it out.

What would she need? Avoidance was the name of the game. Getting spotted would be a deadly foul and getting caught would be a one way, final destination trip to the penalty box. Cover and a distraction would be the place to start.

She stared down at the murky water covering the floor, watching it ripple as she tried to work out what to do next. Above her, the lights flickered, turning her attention upwards.

The lights. She could cut the lights. That would give her extra cover besides the vents, allowing her to use the halls to some extent. The closest power box for the building was in the main workshop. It would be empty and locked up by now. She had noticed in the basement's power box that all the switches had been rigged to stay on, presumably to keep people from messing with them, but the main workshop held the building's generator, the queen bee of the electrical hive. Not only could she cut the power of the main building with it, but the surrounding buildings like the garage and the warehouses as well.

The workshop, then. That was where she needed to go next.

The radio buzzed to life with Dwight's voice.

 _'Negative on the wives. Joey checked his floor. He's not there.'_

 _'Alright, stay frosty, everyone. Possible MIA on Negan.'_

It was time to go.

Pulling her satchel up on to her shoulder and grabbing the radio, Samantha looked around her hideaway one last time. Her eyes watched the papers pinned to the walls blow with a soft draft. Her sleeping bag and clothes floated in the water like storm drain debris. Her mechanical projects and her collection of spare parts littered the shelves. It was a pack rat's den. Hording in the earliest stages. Junk nobody could appreciate besides her. It was a hovel, but it was her hovel.

It had been Negan's castaway, his garbage, but once he knew that someone had found value in it, he was going to want it back. Because that was what people like him did. They were claimers. Takers.

 _'Simon, this is Dee. I've got a worker here who says he saw Negan heading down into the basement with one of his wives. What do you make of that?_ '

And so it began.

Sam clipped the radio to her satchel. She pulled herself up and back into the vent with a grunt. Simon and Dwight exchanged a back and forth via their radios as she crawled through shaft, on her way towards the workshop. They knew about the basement now and it was only matter of time before someone went down there and found Negan. She banished the dread she felt and kept moving.

 _'Stormy rendezvous?'_

 _'In the basement?'_

 _'Hey, whatever gets his engine revving, man.'_

 _'Would you just go check it out.'_

 _'I'm messing with you, Dee. Already in route. Standby.'_

It took about fifteen minutes to get to the workshop. It was dark, but the fire lights were still on, illuminating the exits. When she dropped out of the vent, she kept low to the ground as she made her way across the workshop. She had never been in the part of the workshop where the generator was, but she still knew it was there and had some experience working on the more complex, industrial generators. Fortunately, this wasn't a performance test for school and she wasn't tasked with fixing anything. The exact opposite, actually. There wasn't any wrong way to cause a malfunction - just do what you're generally not supposed to do.

Sam found the main generator, and from there another power box. She used a paperclip from her poor man's lockpicking kit to pick the lock on the panel door, raking the straight end inside and pushing in all the pins. When the lock snapped open, she tossed it aside, opening the panel to reveal the box's interior.

As she surveyed the breakers and wires, her radio sat at her feet with saviors reporting in on standard operations. It wasn't long until Negan's voice finally blared out of the speaker with a roar of static as he sounded the alarm.

 _'Wake up, motherfuckers! We've got a red situation on our hands. A goddamn, fucking red situation. There's an intruder in the Sanctuary! A woman dressed like one of my fucking wives. Fat Joey, get your chunky ass up to my floor and make sure there's only five women up there. Everyone else, keep on the look out for a bitch running around in a black dress. All workers are to stay in their fucking rooms until she's caught. I don't know how the fuck she got in here, but she ain't getting out._ '

At the risk of becoming overconfident again, the corner of Sam's mouth curled up. The odds may be stacked in Negan's favor, but she was in full survival mode now. Her senses were alert and her knowledge of the Sanctuary's layout was at the forefront of her mind.

Being a mouse in the walls had its advantages, and because of them, she knew every last square inch of the compound, much better than the big boss himself. While Negan was up in his high tower getting pampered by his harem of wives, sleeping in a cozy bed, Sam was on the ground, tracing the floors, learning the dips and grooves, the nooks and crannies, like one would the body of a new lover. She got the upper hand on Negan once and she could do it again.

Outside of the workshop she could hear boots pounding against the linoleum floors; Negan's soldiers taking their battle stations. The doors to the workshop were locked so she didn't need to worry about them coming inside unless she gave them a reason.

She turned back to the power box, her hands at the ready.

 _'Dwight, anybody got eyes on her yet?'_

 _'Negative, but we're looking.'_

 _'That little bitch almost cracked my fucking skull with a wrench. If she isn't found in the next ten fucking minutes, Lucille is going to start bashing in heads. I want her found. Alive, if you can.'_

 _'Roger that.'_

Taking care not to electrocute herself, Sam shut down the power to the Sanctuary entirely. The loss of light echoed throughout the workshop, snapping off with a soft whirl and shrouding everything in darkness. Without the tinnitus-inducing buzz that the fluorescent lights gave off, the storm outside could really be heard, the raindrops hitting the windows hard.

She began pulling out wires, yanking them until they tore in half and leaving them to hang out of the box like a disembowelment. They zapped with lingering electricity when they broke, but they no longer had any live currents flowing through them. She picked up a nearby socket wrench and went at the breakers with it. The switches bent and broke off, falling to the floor as she hit the box with the wrench over and over again. The frustration and stress from her ordeal channeled into the hits and she found herself striking the box harder. Her whole body was put into it with both hands gripping the wrench tight.

Nothing came to mind as she pounded away at the box, no faces appeared behind her eyes as she sent the wrench down. It wasn't catharsis. It was just fear and anger. She didn't stop until her arms ached and she was out of breath. The wrench dropped unceremoniously from her fingers and hit the floor with a loud clang.

Breathing hard, Sam turned away from the ruined box and walked back the way she came. It left her feeling both strangely hollow, and filled to the brim. Complex, conflicting feelings were really the only thing her brain could process. She gave herself the moment to just feel as she walked back across the workshop.

When the moment was over, she thought about what to do next. She had gotten her extra cover so now she needed a distraction. The Sanctuary's kitchen was the first place to come to mind. A wide, open area filled with gas, ovens and cleaning chemicals. She didn't know how she would cause a distraction, but the kitchen would give her a lot to brainstorm with.

She pulled up her mental map of the Sanctuary and traced the possible routes she could take. Synapsis linked and her mind's eye conjured a blueprint of the duct work. With her eyes closed she could see the layout as clearly as if she physically held it in her hands. She focused in on the kitchen and surrounding air shafts. This was one of those rare instances where taking the vents would be a risky move. There were no vents that connected from the east wing to the north wing. She would have to leave one vent and climb into another, but the halls in that area held a lot of the common rooms and could possibly have saviors patrolling them. The fastest and safest route would require her to leave the building, running from the east wing door to the north.

The doors were right outside the main workshop, but Sam hesitated. She could hear the storm on the other side of them. She was more of a creature of the cold than of the heat, given where she hailed from, but thunderstorms and dresses did not mix, and she had nothing dry to change into once she got soaked.

Still, it was no time to be finicky. Soggy boots and underwear could never measure up to the same levels of discomfort as being riddled with bullets. She pushed on the latch bar and stepped out into the storm.

It was raging like a monsoon. Heavy raindrops fell in sheets as lightening ripped through the sky in flashes of white and purple. Thunder cracked, echoing like fireworks into the night. She gasped as the rain hit her body, soaking her in seconds as if she stood under a showerhead on full blast. Her hair became matted, sticking against her forehead and neck like rivulets of black ink. Her breath clouded as it slipped past her lips while the cold nipped at her skin through her rapidly dampening jacket.

Her boots splashed in the puddles as she ran full sprint around the side of the main building. She made for the west wing doors, praying that they would be unlocked as she grabbed the handle and pulled. The corridor was empty. Water dripped from her clothes and pooled into a puddle at her feet, the sound echoing off the walls into the long stretch of shadows like something out of a horror movie. Sam pushed her wet bangs back from her face and reached down to switch her radio back on.

 _'Simon, what the fuck is going on with the lights? I can't see dick.'_

 _'I don't know. Maintenance, what's happening?'_

 _'We're checking it out now. Standby.'_

A sound further down the corridor had Sam switching off the radio, silencing the transmission.

She ducked down in front of the double doors and listened, picking up faint voices. Incomprehensible, even in the harrowing silence of the Sanctuary, but they were coming closer. She looked around the corridor for somewhere to hide. She pushed off the doors and went further in, keeping her hand against the right wall to feel for a door. The voices grew louder as Sam moved on a collusion course with them. Her heart pounded with each step. It was like a twisted game of Chicken. She knew she was leaving behind a trail of water on the floor, but she hoped the darkness would hide it.

With her eyes now adjusted to the darkness, she could just barely see the corridor coming to an end up ahead where the voices would be turning the corner at any second. There was the weak glow of flashlights, getting brighter. Her fingertips touched the cool metal of a door frame and she wasted no time grabbing the doorknob and stepping inside, closing the door behind her just as a trio of saviors rounded the corner.

She sat crouched in the miscellaneous room, staring at the space underneath the door as the voices passed by and flashes of light flickered in time with their footsteps. She caught snippets of their conversation, complaints about having to patrol the grounds in the middle of a storm.

Once she heard the doors close, she switched the radio back on, keeping the volume low as she crept back out into the halls towards the cafeteria.

 _'Negan, we found the problem. It looks like the power to the main building has been cut.'_

 _'And how in the fuck did that happen?'_

The worker in maintenance stammered into the radio, intimidated by Negan. He apologized at length and assured the leader that they would have the lights back on as soon as possible. Negan threatened that they have them back on in the next twenty minutes, or else they would have to explain to Lucille why they weren't working, but that wasn't going to happen. The lights would be out for at least the rest of the night. She yanked out enough wires to keep the power out for days. The power box looked like a bowl of spaghetti when she was finished with it. They would need to replace and rewire everything.

The doors to the cafeteria were locked and she had to track down a vent to get inside. Dropping down into the large room and replacing the grate, she made her way back into the kitchen, pushing through the swinging doors. The area was spotless, with what little light there was reflecting off the stainless steel tables and counters. Sam found a relatively clean looking dish towel hanging on a hook and used it to dab herself down, ringing her wet hair into it and drying off her legs. She then wrung out her jacket and the skirt of her dress into a purge sink so she wouldn't leave behind anymore water trails.

Once she was dry (or rather, less wet), Sam reached into her satchel and rooted around for her pen light. She dug deep, feeling around for the familiar metal of the slim flashlight. When she couldn't find it, she peered through the darkness into her bag to see the light missing from her supplies.

Where was it? She thought back to the last time she used it, down in the basement when she flipped the breaker. It must have fallen out during her struggle with Negan. Great.

Before she could lament the lose of her trusty light, the sound of the double doors opening had Sam ducking for cover. She peeked over the top of one of the tables and saw flashlights coming towards the cooking area. Looking around in a panic for somewhere to hide, the only place was underneath the table in front of her. The darkness of the kitchen would keep her from being spotted, but it still wasn't the most covert place. However, with the swinging door pushing open, Sam didn't have a choice and crawled underneath, pushing herself as far back as she could with her legs tucked underneath her.

There was more than one. Not the same three from before, but still more than just one. She could hear them talking in low tones as they stepped inside, the door swinging closed behind them. She counted two pairs of footsteps patrolling the empty kitchen. One of them passed the opening of the aisle she was hiding on and she saw the unmistakable flash of light reflecting off a blade. From her spot under the table, she could see it in his hand as he passed down at the end. A serrated buck knife held in the palm of fingerless glove.

A whistle sounded out. A two note 'yoohoo', slow and drawn out for dramatic effect. The beams from their flashlights gave away their positions as they searched up and down the aisles, both saviors whistling for her to come out.

Ollie Ollie oxen free, no thank you.

Sam stayed where she was, under the kitchen table as she listened to the footsteps. They walked at a slow pace, almost leisurely up and down the aisles as if they weren't aware that she was in there with them. Somewhere behind her, the second savior tapped the tip of his knife against one of the tables, dragging it across to make it a shriek like nails on a chalkboard. The first savior was all the way by the freezers across the kitchen, but his companion was coming up on Sam's hiding spot. She could hear his boots squeaking against the ground as he approached, whistling as he dragged his knife across another table. Her ears screamed in protest at the shrill noise, but she didn't move.

It took everything in her not to bolt when a pair of legs suddenly appeared in front of her table. Right above her head, the knife came down again, the contact sending vibrations through the stainless steel before running along the length of it, producing another intimidating ' _schlik'_.

Sam held her breath, reaching up with a hand to cover her mouth as she stared at the pant legs of the savior's trousers. Her heart pounded harder when he didn't move on to the next table like he did the others. In the hand not covering her face, Sam reached into her bag and clutched her shard of broken mirror, readying herself to lash out the second the savior reached underneath to grab her.

He remained idle at the table she hid under and she thought for sure that he knew she was there, except he didn't do anything but stand there. She could hear him tapping both his knife and the fingers of his free hand on the table top to some uneven rhythm, the clicks and clanks of someone absently moving their hands.

After another intense minute, the savior finally moved, letting his knife slid across the table one last time as he continued down the aisle. She listened to him join back up with his companion by the gated off area where the kitchen staff locked up the food. The rattling of the gate and low tones could be heard before both sets of footsteps moved back towards the swinging entrance.

Carefully, Sam crawled out from under the kitchen table and poked her head up over the top. She saw the long beams from their flashlights moving around in the dining area of the cafeteria. She waited until she heard the double doors close before pulling herself back on to her feet. She braced her hands against the table and let out a heavy breath, feeling lightheaded from the close call. If the savior had just been an ounce more invested in their search for the intruder, he would have found her.

A pang along her palm had her uncurling her fingers gripping the piece of mirror. Sam stared down at it with a pensive look, realizing that she had gripped the shard too tight. Red stained the mirror from the new cut on her palm. She watched a large drop of blood pool at the base of the cut before leaking out and running down her wrist. It stung, but she did nothing to starch the bleeding. It ran down her arm and dripped onto the floor. She knew that blood was red, but it looked like a dark green, almost black to her. She wiped her hand off on her dress.

She ransacked the cabinets and drawers of the kitchen, looking for anything she could use for a distraction. Her ears stayed tuned into the sounds outside while her hands searched. In one bottom cabinet, stuffed too deliberately in the far back behind the cooking wine, she found a half empty bottle of whiskey. The golden brown liquid swashed in the bottle as she pulled it out, holding it up.

No doubt it was stashed there by a stressed worker or kitchen staff, too reliant on the alcohol's blissful numbing effect to keep it in their living counters in case a savior came knocking, looking to claim it.

If the situation wasn't so dire, she'd might have felt bad for taking it, but she twisted off the top and grabbed a dish towel before she could think too hard on it. She sat down on the ground, out of sight, placing the bottle in front of her and laying out the towel. Using the shard of mirror, she cut the towel in half, the fabric ripping loudly through the kitchen. She used one half to wrap her bleeding palm, pouring just a little whiskey on it as a crude way of sterilizing the cut. It burned like fire, making her bite hard on her bottom lip keep from making noise. She rocked back and forth as she clutched her hand tight to mute the pain. When the worst it of subsided, she let out a breath and loosened her fingers, using her other hand and her teeth to tie the material into a knot.

The other half of the towel went into the bottle, pushed in until one end stuck out of the neck and the other was soaking in the whiskey. She used the oven burner to light the protruding end of the towel, turning the bottle of whiskey into a Molotov cocktail. Brightness assaulted her sensitive eyesight as the towel caught fire, a burning flower of beauty and death. Sam stepped towards the window that separated the cooking area from the dining, cocking back her arm and taking aim.

The flare of it sailed through the air like a comet as it passed through into the cafeteria. It landed on one of the tables with a shatter. The whiskey spilled out over the tables and floor. The fire followed not a second behind with an audible swoosh as it ignited. Sam gasped at the sight, the expulsion of flames, an array of warm colors she couldn't comprehend. For several seconds she stood there and stared, mesmerized by the brilliant display of fire spreading, burning everything it touched as black smoke wafted up in a thick cloud.

Then she remembered where she was. She ran out of the cooking area and around the burning tables. The double doors slammed opened and she stumbled out into the hallway.

"Hey!"

Her head snapped to the left, seeing the two saviors standing further down that hall, both leaning against the wall with a lit cigarette between them. They stared at each other, Sam with panic and the saviors with bewilderment before realization set in and the savior holding the cigarette dropped it in surprise.

"It's her!" He pulled his knife from his belt.

Sam took off down the hall, not looking back as she heard the men follow her, but as they passed the doors of the cafeteria, they saw the smoke drifting out from underneath and flames through the little windows.

"What the fuck! The kitchen is on fire!"

Without a sense of direction she ran, following the turns of the hall blindly to put as much distance between her and the cafeteria as possible. Once the saviors radioed in, the place was going to be a hot zone (no pun intended). She didn't stop running until she was almost clear across the building. She stopped to catch her breath in an empty hallway, collapsing against the wall. Her breathing was on the verge of becoming painful, but she sucked in mouthfuls anyways, turning her radio back on.

 _'We got a situation in the kitchen! I repeat, there's a situation in the kitchen! Fire! The place is burning up, we need guys down here ASAP!_ '

If luck would allow, that would keep the bulk of the saviors occupied for a while.

Once she had her breath back, she pushed off the wall and ran until she found herself somewhere in the south wing.

There was a maintenance room ahead. The next phase of her escape would be to get out of the main building and then out the surrounding fence. It went without saying that she couldn't just waltz right out the front gate. Negan would still have his guards posted there, maybe even more because of the lockdown. The front gate was the only exit in the Sanctuary's perimeter, or at least the only designated one. Though jobs like redirect duty and around-the-clock watches kept the area around the Sanctuary from having too many goblins lurking about, the compound was still only surrounded by a simple chain link fence. The barbed wire running along the top would keep her from climbing over, but if she could get her hands a pair of pliers she could cut her way out.

She rooted around the maintenance room for supplies. As she searched one of the tool tables, her radio buzzed to life again, with a more ominous transmission.

 _'This is David. Negan, I think I got her. I saw her go into one of the maintenance rooms in the south wing. I'm right outside, waiting on your orders.'_

 _'Knock yourself out, Davey. I'm sending Dwight your way.'_

Sam rolled her eyes because this was almost funny. Negan must know, or at least suspect, that she was listening to all their communications because she had taken his radio, thus hearing just as he had heard that the savior was standing outside, and yet had done nothing to warn "Davey". She wondered what Negan was playing at by doing this. His sardonic response didn't do much to convey his faith in his savior. Was he trying to mess with her head? He likened her to a mouse, so did that imply he was the cat in this little chase of theirs? He certainly postured like a tomcat. Flashing his claws and doing as he pleased with his tail hanging up in the air, all attitude and condescendence.

When the door creaked open, she pretended not to hear it, keeping her back turned as she searched the drawers for pliers. There was a pair in the bottom door and she quickly slipped them into her satchel as she listened to the savior creep up behind her. He wasn't as stealthy as he thought. His shoes squeaked against the floor and his jacket made noise whenever he moved his arms. He didn't even seem to notice that she had gone completely still.

She could almost feel the lewd excitement coming off him, hear the elevation in his breathing; the vulgar trepidation. She didn't need to look at his face to know he was getting off on this. Still, she pretended not to hear him, waiting until he drew close enough.

When she felt the shift in the air as he braced himself to jump her, she pivoted to the side, narrowly missing his large body. The savior rammed into the table with a pained yell and fell backwards on to the ground. Sam moved behind one of the metal shelves, using her weight to push it over and on top of him. The tools and boxes on the shelf went crashing to floor as the shelf impacted with a loud bang.

She heard the savior groan, but didn't check to see if he was getting up. She moved to climb over the shelf, jumping on to the table and bracing her arms to lift herself up, swinging her legs and launching herself over. She landed on the ground with a grunt, gracelessly landing on her knees and then her side before scrambling to get back up and out of the room.

Distancing herself from yet another disaster, Sam ran through the halls towards an unknown destination. With cover and distraction out of the way, it was now time for her exit strategy. She needed to think about where the least savior activity would be and where to cut the gate. There was so much to take into consideration, precautions she didn't have the time to take and limited resources.

Sam was a planner by nature, but none of this was even in the same realm as her comfort zone. It was one step at a time. It had to be that way, otherwise the mere thought of living outside the walls of the Sanctuary could have her reconsidering escaping. It hadn't crossed her mind until then that maybe turning herself over really was the lesser of two evils. There was the possibility that this wasn't a situation of choosing whether to live or die, but rather choosing one death over another. To die one way that _might_ be quick and painless, as opposed to dying another way that might be slow and horrible, like the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire or the jumpers of 9/11. Choosing to either jump to your death or stay trapped inside a building on fire, ready to collapse into a smoldering pile of ashes.

Her choice was either Negan or the goblins, and she wondered which one would be the equivalent of burning to death.

 _'Negan, this is Dee over in the south wing. Davey's down and the girl is gone. No sign of where she went.'_

 _'You bunch of useless pussies. She's just one girl, how the fuck is this so hard?'_

The furnace room would have to be her exit point. There were so many transmissions coming through the radio with saviors from all over the compound constantly reporting in to Negan, it was impossible to tell just where everyone was, and more importantly, where they weren't. It was reported by Davey that he had been in the south wing so that was the last reported sighting of her. The saviors who weren't battling the fire in the cafeteria were going to converge there and then branch out. The furnace room was on the opposite side of the compound with its own exit to the outside.

 _'And while we're on the fucking subject, can any of you jerkoffs explain to me just how the fuck this bitch was able to merrily tap dance around my Sanctuary, right under your fucking noses? Or how she fucking managed to get her hands on a goddamn gun? Somebody is going to get their fucking head caved in for this.'_

Through all of this she wondered where Negan was.

She could hear him on the radio, but where was he in the compound? If she knew then she would steer clear of it, treating it like a hot zone for a deadly disease. Because that was what he was, really. A disease. Him and his saviors. If she were in the headspace for it, Sam would have contemplated (not for the first time) the philosophy behind this new world, of what really constituted as the greatest threat, the goblins or the people, but good Lord was it the most inopportune moment to digress in her own head.

She supposed it was better than thinking of the alternative, like her death, but that usually followed thoughts of new world philosophy anyways so she was really only doing it for the reprieve.

 _'We've lost all visuals on her, sir.'_

Static spilled from the speaker with something that sounded like a sigh. _'If you want something fucking done right around this shithole, I guess you've gotta do it yourself.'_

Sam chose not to dwell on what that might mean. Somewhere ahead she heard more noises and she moved into another room, this time a small mop closet that smelled heavily of bleach and disinfectant. She pressed her back against the wall and slid down to the floor with her knees drawn up to her chest.

Her radio sat tucked between her thighs and chest on low volume as it reported the ongoings of the Sanctuary. The fire in the cafeteria was still going, but was controlled, not reaching further than the cafeteria. Other than a few tables, there was no significant damage. Dwight reported in on Davey's condition; unconscious but still breathing with no signs of serious injury (more's the pity), and Simon relayed that they were coming up with nothing in their search for Sam. Throughout Negan remained suspiciously silent.

She sat in the closet, breathing in and out slowly as she waited for the hall to clear. Her eyes closed and she leaned her head back. Overwhelming exhaustion was beginning to pull her under. The night was still far from over and she wondered how much mileage her body had left before it crashed.

 _'Hey Samantha_ , _'_ Negan's voice came through the speaker, _'are you listening?'_

She looked down at the radio in her lap.

 _'I know you are.'_

His tone was teasing as he spoke to her, his chuckles fringed with static. She heard a familiar clicking somewhere in the background and it took a few seconds to recognize her pen light. Negan must have picked it up from where she had dropped it in the basement. In her mind's eye she could see him holding it in his hand as he talked into the radio with that condescending smirk on his face, his thumb pressing the button on top and making the light flicker.

 _'If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is your game plan here, little mouse? Even if you manage to make it out of the compound, which is sure as shit unlikely, how far do you think you're going to get before me and my boys catch up to you, huh? You've got, what? A handgun with no extra ammo, a little bag of toys, no supplies. You have a better chance turning yourself over to me than you do out there. I'm giving you a way of out this that doesn't have to end with your guts being torn out of your stomach. I suggest you take it._ '

Was he the twenty-seventh story drop onto hard concrete or the burning flames and suffocating smoke? She wanted to ask but didn't. The clicking stopped and the radio beeped, the transmission cut off.

Sam stood up and left the closet. The halls were silent again and she continued towards the furnace room. It wasn't until she was right outside the double doors that she heard another noise. Footsteps. One pair, far in the distance, but not too far that the owner won't hear Sam opening the doors, so she stayed where she was. Her hand rested on the latch bar while her other held the radio. She stood unmoving, waiting for something to happen. The footsteps were still there, but it didn't sound like they were coming in her direction. It was more like they were pacing. Moving up and down the halls in a leisurely stride. Whistling started up again, but it was a cheery tone, not the trademark, two-note call of the saviors.

It was several minutes until something finally happened. She heard a beep, recognizing another radio. She waited, listening...listening...

A shrill cry erupted from her radio, making her almost drop it.

It ripped through the silence like a serrated knife through flesh. Her hands scrambled to get her grip back and switch it off, silence taking over again. Her heart skipped a beat and panic made her break out in a cold sweat. She listened again, praying that whoever was lurking hadn't heard the cry of feedback.

The footsteps stopped, lingering for a long moment before turning with a squeak against the linoleum and walking back in the other direction, the owner whistling again with an air of nonchalance. Sam listened to them walk further away until the sound of a door opening and closing was heard. She reached down to turn her radio back on, dreading to hear someone reporting suspicious activity near the furnace room, but she only heard Negan's voice coming through the speakers, talking directly to her again.

 _'This really doesn't have to be this way, you know. I know I fucking suck at making good first impressions, but I can be a very reasonable guy once you get to know me. Honest.'_

She ignored him and his succinct words. She knew how he liked to operate, how he opted to manipulation once he realized he couldn't use his intensive power to intimidate, or his men to physically force someone into submission. He had no idea how long she had been inside his Sanctuary. He would find out soon enough, she didn't doubt that, but for right now he couldn't even begin to comprehend just how much she knew and understood (not condoned, mind) how he led his community. Sam had spent a fair enough time reading about famous historical tyrants and dictators. If Negan thought what he was doing here was anything groundbreaking, then he was dead wrong.

 _Nihil novi sub sole_. There is nothing new under the sun.

 _'Come on, Sam.'_

She stepped into the furnace room, seeing an exit door at the top of the platform. She ran across the room with her sights zeroed in on the door, mounting the steps leading up to the platform.

 _'Let's be friends.'_

Her body slammed against the door's latch bar, throwing it open as she burst out of the building and into the wet night. The rain had lessened to a light drizzle and for a split, foolish second, she dared to see it as the proverbial dawn.

Her vision was tunneled, keeping her from seeing the figure standing against the wall next to the door, waiting. He dropped the radio he was holding and lunged at Sam's exposed back.

A hand grabbed her arm from behind, yanking her backwards. She screamed at the assault as she fought against the iron grip, realizing her mistake a moment too late. An arm wrapped around her waist and gripped her hard. It curled around her stomach, pushing in painfully and causing her breathing to hitch. She struggled as she felt herself being pulled backwards into something solid. Her arms and legs thrashed and she yelled in protest, fighting like a wild animal for freedom.

Through her struggles she felt the person holding her lean in close from behind. Warm breath ghosted over her neck, clouding the cold night air in puffs of white that churned like riptides.

"Gotcha," a voice said, the feeling of coarse facial hair scratching her cheek.

Negan's hand came up to her face. His palm covered her mouth while his fingers held her nose closed, cutting off her oxygen. Her suffocation alarm went off immediately when his vice grip tightened on her face. She clawed at his hand in blind panic, but he didn't relent, even as her nails embedded themselves into the rough skin of his hand. They moved down his forearm, but bit into thick leather. She yanked at his arm, hoping to pull it away from her mouth long enough to take a breath. Her legs kicked in desperation as she tried throwing her weight back into him, to throw him off balance, but Negan was a brick wall behind her, solid and immovable. He was holding nothing back.

Her vision began to blacken around the edges as her lungs contracted inside her ribcage. Tears pooled at the corner of her eyes from fear as her mind screamed in agony, begging for this not to be the end. She didn't want to die. She wasn't ready to die. Negan was going to take it all away. He was going to pinch his thumb and forefinger against her flame and snuff it out like it was nothing. She would die with her body pressed back into his and the smell of his cologne in her nose. Her nails dug in deeper and she kicked her legs harder in a last-ditch effort to get Negan to let go until she started losing the ability to move her limbs. Conscious thought began to abandoned her, leaving behind a heralding lightheadedness and loss of self.

Just as she thought her lungs would collapse in on themselves, she vaguely felt the hand slip from her face. Negan had released her and she could breath again, but she knew she was still going to lose consciousness. His arm around her waist loosened. The pull of gravity and her body's own unwillingness to move had her falling to the ground. However, just as she expected to feel the hard impact of concrete face first, Negan grabbed her and lowered her down with a surprising gentleness that she was unable to comprehend in her air-deprived state of mind. Everything felt muddled and sounded distant, like floating underwater.

Negan put her on her back. The cold from the ground seeped up through her already wet clothes, chilling her skin further. Raindrops hit her face without hindrance as her arms laid useless at her sides. She looked up at the night sky with half-lidded eyes, her mouth open just a bit as air gradually filled her lungs again. The glare from the outdoor light above the door saturated her view with a color she saw as an acidic green until Negan stepped into her view. Because of the light behind him, she only saw him as a black figure, his face barely distinguishable as he stood over her.

In her last moments of consciousness, she watched him reach down and take her satchel from her. He opened it and picked through its contents. If she had the capability then she would have felt helpless watching him touch her stuff, but her vision was getting darker and she couldn't stave it off. He took out the gun and held it in his hand, giving it a curious look before grinning down at Samantha with a wicked smile. He tucked the gun into the front of his pants before dropping her bag to the ground with a wet thud.

"You really should have taken that fucking shot," he said, "because you're mine now."

His words followed her into darkness as she finally let go and oblivion took her.

* * *

 **AN: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Make sure you let me know what you think of it. Feedback is very much appreciated and it lets me know that you guys want more. I guess, technically, Negan wasn't in it much again, but at least he was there in spirit, and in radio. He'll most certainly be in next chapter a lot.**

 **This chapter was pretty lengthy, so if you came across a grammar mistake or whatever in the material, let me know in a review and I'll fix it. Thanks!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	6. Looking for the Magic

**AN: Thanks so much for the reviews last chapter! I really appreciate every one of them.** **This chapter has only been partially beta read by my pal, MartyrFan, so sorry for any mistakes. If you come across one, let me know in a review and I'll fix it. Thanks!**

 **Song: "Looking for the Magic" by Mind the Gap**

 _ **Recently Re-edited: 4/30/19**_

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead.**

* * *

 _Looking for the magic, or, "All magic is science and Negan isn't as ignorant as his speech would suggest - this Samantha believed wholeheartedly."_

~O~

 _~Then~_

Samantha's parents died when she was twelve, and time didn't stop when it happened.

Someone once told her, she couldn't remember who, that time stopped after losing a loved one, but time moved just as it always did and Sam had felt present and acutely aware through the entire ordeal. She had felt numb, which she supposed was an appropriate response, but nothing about the world around her felt different, just that her parents were no longer in it. They were here one moment and then gone the next.

She loved them, of course, and she did grieve for them, eventually, in her own way. It was just that for the first month she wasn't able to feel much of anything. She didn't know why. Her face didn't budge an inch from its blank expression during the funeral, not even as she watched her parents' caskets be lowered into the ground.

Her father had been loving. He had been supportive, nurturing and very proud of his bright daughter. Being of humble beginnings and having a gentle nature, he wasn't a man of material possessions or soaring ambitions. He didn't come from anything worthwhile and didn't plan to go anywhere worthwhile, either. He saw his only child as his greatest accomplishment and had been content.

Her mother had been difficult. She hadn't been a very happy person by nature. Not _unhappy_ , necessarily - just not happy. There was a difference - supposedly. She had been melancholic and a bit overdramatic. She hadn't been ready to settle down and get married when she got pregnant with Sam, and sometimes that spilled over into how she treated her daughter and the foundation that their relationship was built on (loss of youth, lingering resentment, inability to relate). But only sometimes. She hadn't been content, but that hardly mattered.

The wake was beautiful.

A wake for the Wakes. White roses and lilies. Overcast but not raining. Grey.

She remembered sitting in the church pew, wearing a black dress and cardigan, only half listening to the vicar recite passages from the Holy Book. Her attention drifted whenever he spoke.

Instead she focused on a cloth moth (Tineola Bisselliella, she mouthed to herself), fluttering in the rafters. None of her relatives corrected her behavior because they weren't invested in the ceremony much themselves. Throughout the entire day, Sam recalled seeing only a few tear-streaked faces, from her parents' friends and coworkers, but she saw none from her father's family. They were just as vacant as she had been, but for different reasons.

Her father's family was an isolated incident. The natives on the reservation were friendly, down to earth people, but her father came from a strict, old-fashioned upbringing. Her grandfather frowned upon living dependent on things like technology and modern medicine and he had been deeply distrustful of people not in the tribe. He especially didn't like crossbreeding. Nobody had ever said anything outright, but the family didn't like that Samantha was mixed. Their dislike for her Irish mother was apparent and the feeling was very much mutual, but their feelings towards Sam were more subtle.

Subtle, but still there.

She picked up on their discontent in different ways, instead reading it in what they _didn't_ _say_ and what they _didn't_ _do_ , rather than gossiping and giving backhanded compliments like they did with her mother. The family refused to call her Sam or Samantha, instead referring to her only by her middle name. Every time one of them spoke to her, she could tell they didn't want to. She would look at their shoes and see them turned away from her, itching to bolt. It didn't help that most found Sam to be an unsettling child.

After the ceremony everybody went back to her father's childhood home for the reception. Sam sat out on the back porch with her cousins; the children of the brother who owned the casino - not the nice brother who would eventually become her legal guardian - not the one who took her to tell the bees about her parents. It was the brother who paid for the funeral but complained whenever Sam left the room.

The son, Payat, who called her a mutt and flicked coins at her legs when she wore shorts, was her age, younger than her by only three weeks. He had rolls of what his mother called baby fat, but everybody knew it was just regular fat. He had a round face that reminded Sam of Porky Pig.

The daughter, Tama, who was jealous of Sam's "Pocahontas" hair, was the eldest by two years. She had developed early and called Sam flat-chested while flashing the straps of her bra proudly like she was winning some contest. It didn't bother Sam. Her breasts would come in eventually, but she would always be able to beat Tama in every board game out there, so her cousin could have this, if only to let her keep her fragile ego for just a while longer.

All throughout her parent's funeral Tama typed away on her new flip phone, messaging the friends she would rather be with. After the burial, she asked her mother if she could leave, but her mother refused and now she was pouting on the back deck of the house with her little brother and cousin. Sam took the rare opportunity of Tama's undivided attention and asked if she could see what games Tama's phone came with, but she told her to fuck off before taking out her phone again and turning her back to the table.

Payat let out a snort as he twisted in one of the patio chair, his pudgy legs spinning him around until he got dizzy while Sam stared at Tama's back. In the background, she could hear the voices of the adults and the clattering of utensils inside the house. She didn't feel angry at the crass rejection, but she didn't let it go like she usually would have. Something nasty boiled in the pit of her stomach as she listened to the buttons of her cousin's phone click as she typed ferociously.

She had heard Tama get up several times the previous night to use the bathroom only to have nothing come out, and she had seen the prescription bottle inside the bathroom cabinet.

Even through her apathy, Sam was able to find the will to be ruthless.

"You had sex with Ahmik, that's why you got that UTI."

Tama stopped typing, Payat stopped spinning and there was a pregnant silence.

Her cousin's head snapped around, copper cheeks turning beet red and her brown eyes scathing. She looked like she wanted to throw her phone at Sam's head and Sam prepared for it, not unaccustomed to physical abuse from her cousins, but Tama stood up from the table instead with her phone held tight in a crushing grip.

"I hate you, Nakoma!" she screamed.

Sam didn't flinch as Tama kicked over her chair and stomped into the house, slamming the sliding glass door behind her so hard that it was amazing that it didn't crack. It clicked as she engaged the lock in childish revenge, even though Sam could just walk around the house and use the front door.

Letting out a patronizing laugh, Payat started spinning again.

"She's going to kill you for that later," he said.

"Her period is late. She's going to have bigger problems," Sam replied as she stood up from the table. "Let's go walk the paths."

Side by side they walked off the porch and across the yard. Payat usually wasn't this complacent, but she figured he must have been even more bored than his sister (what an inconvenience her parents' death turned out to be for the family. Six feet underground, she was sure her mother was smiling).

It didn't make them friends. The only thing she liked about her cousin was that they had similar taste in video games, and that her uncle would buy the new ones for him. Her parents couldn't afford to buy Sam her own console, so when she stayed with her cousins, she would sneak downstairs to play them after everybody went to bed because Payat never gave her a turn when he was awake.

They didn't stop walking until they were well out of sight of the house. They branched off from each other and explored the area with lukewarm interest. While Sam stared down at a beetle crawling up the trunk of a rotting tree, her cousin called out to her, pointing at something on the ground in front of him.

"Hey mutt, come look at this. It's a dead pigeon."

"That's a crow," she said as she came up behind him.

"Crows are black, stupid," he sneered, eager to condescend.

"Not always."

It was a hooded crow (Corvis Cornix, it took her a moment to recall). They had a streaked coloring with the main body being ash grey and the head, throat, wings and tail being black. To Sam it looked like what happens when seagulls get caught in an oil spill, or maybe, more poetically, a premise for a mythological tale where the grey bird did something wrong and was going through a process of corruption, cursed to become a crooked creature that feasted only on the dead.

Even if it had similar coloring to a pigeon (though not really, in Sam's opinion), the beak was wrong. Pigeons had smaller, rounder beaks for picking up grain and seeds. Crows had the typical sharper beak of most carrion bird species, prominent and easier to cut through dead flesh with. What was curious, though, was that the hooded crow wasn't indigenous to North America. They were an Eurasian species. That begged the question why her and her cousin were looking down at one all the way in Alaska.

It must have been someone's pet. Probably illegally imported overseas. She suspected Mr. Bishop, an elderly man who lived by himself just outside the reservation. He was a passionate birdwatcher and she wouldn't put it past him to have a few birds of questionable origin around his house. She would have to check up on him. He had a stroke last summer that left him in poor health and it wouldn't be like him to lose track of one of his birds, especially one not native to the US. The forest rangers would not be happy if they found out a foreign species was almost introduced into the ecosystem.

"Here's the nest," her cousin said, "and another dead pigeon."

He stood at the base of a tree, toeing at an overturned bundle of sticks with his shoe. She walked over and saw the second bird that was quite obviously a regular crow laying near the nest. The crow was female, laying on its back with its stomach burst open, full of maggots. They wiggled around inside the chest cavity as they ate away at the insides, little yellow bodies squirming against red and brown, a display of nature at its most macabre. Red ants swarmed around its head, burrowing into its eyes. Her cousin picked up a stick and poked at it with a look of disgusted glee on his pig face.

She knew that Payat was the one who knocked the nest over, partly out of curiosity but mostly to be a jerk. Why he was pretending this was the first time he was seeing this, she didn't care enough to guess. He must have caught the birds off guard and they fell several feet with their nest.

Above them, two other crows perched on one of the lower branches of the tree. They were spots of ink black against the overcast sky peeking in through the tree tops. They looked down at the children and the broken nest with tilted heads, cawing at them almost as if in inquiry. Payat looked up at the birds, his face rolling up. He reached down and grabbed a large rock. He threw it at them, hitting the trunk of the tree next to them with a loud _thunk_ that made them scatter with indignant squawks.

"They'll remember your face," she told him.

"No they won't. Birds are stupid with tiny brains," he said, wiping off the dirt on his hand on his black dress pants.

They would remember his face. It was a well known fact. The kind you would find on desk calendars given as cheap, last minute Christmas presents or on the caps of Snapple bottles.

"I don't like it when they look at me," he complained.

As soon as Payat turned away, the crows collected back on the branch. Sam looked up at them, regarding them just as curiously as they did her.

She had read in the University of Washington Scientific that crows mourned their dead, or at least showed signs that they might be capable of it. They gathered around their dead much like humans would around a person, but whether this was out of grief or just curiosity was still up for debate. If the former, their mourning rituals weren't as heartwarming as elephants' were, known to bury their dead and revisit grave sites, but the fact that they even gathered in the first place was fascinating.

Samantha looked back at the dead crow. She picked up a stick to turn it over. Payat watched her with that constipated look on his face where she knew he was thinking real hard about something that he couldn't figure out but when the frustration became too much he would take it out on her and say something mean.

"It's dead, just like your parents."

When she didn't take the bait, he scoffed and turned away, going back over to the first bird.

"Hey, look," he pointed down at the male hooded crow that was starting to twitch, "this one is still alive. You know what that means, right?"

She shook her head. He bent over and picked up another rock and held it out to her.

"We need to put it out of its misery. Papa said that's the humid thing to do with stupid animals that are going to die anyways."

"Humane," she corrected.

"Whatever. Just take the rock, Mutt."

She took the rock from him, looking down at the crow with a frown. The creature withered pitifully in the dirt as it opened its beak and let out a broken call. Something in her chest tightened at the sight. Even though she doubted he was doing it to be humane, her cousin had a point. The crow was going to die and the longer they left it, the more pain it suffered.

"Smash its brains in," Payat commanded. "I want to see you do it."

Her fingers tightened around the rock and she cocked her arm back, but instead of dropping it on the bird, she threw it at her cousin. It hit him in the cheek, knocking him back. Stunned, he grabbed at his bleeding cheek with wide eyes. Sam watched as tears gathered and his face screwed up in an ugly expression. He let out a noise that sounded like a pig squealing and scrambled to his feet.

"I'm telling my mom!" he cried, taking off back the way they came.

After Sam watched him disappear behind the trees, she sat down on the grass and shrugged off her cardigan, the early autumn air feeling cool against her skin. She used the cardigan to pick up the hooded crow, swaddling it gently as she rested it in her lap. It made another call, but she shushed it. Her thumb stroked its breast, soothing it the best she could.

She held the crow in her lap until it passed. The crows in the tree behind her cawed as soon as the male stopped moving.

For several minutes, she sat on the ground holding the hooded crow in her hands. Her chest felt tight again and her throat contracted until it was too painful to swallow, but her eyes remained dry. She buried the male afterwards and took the already dead female back to the house where she later dissected it to find out what it looked like on the inside (an allusion to her parents, perhaps? She didn't think too deep into it).

When she was done with the female, she went back outside and buried it next to the male, building them a tiny memorial with white pebbles and wild flowers she gathered from the forest. It was peaceful, more peaceful than her own parents' funeral. There were no false mourners there. No bitter relatives looking to maintain their sparkling images. No clergymen to sing praise over an entity who they claimed was the ultimate good but who had no qualms about making a twelve-year-old girl an orphan.

She left and forgot about them for a couple weeks until the day her uncle who owned the casino refused to take her to the cemetery to trade out the flowers on her parent's tombstones. She visited the grave she built for the crows instead.

~O~

 _~Now~_

For three days, Samantha sat locked inside a room.

It was no bigger than a mop closet and it was dark. There was absolutely nothing in the room but four bare walls and a floor. The only light that permeated the claustrophobic darkness was the sliver of space between the bottom of the door and the ground. That was what she woke up to.

Coming back into consciousness had been a slow climb. When her brain came back online, she allowed her other senses to reorient before opening her eyes and seeing where Negan had ended up putting her, since he had clearly decided not to stick her corpse on his front lawn.

The ground felt cold and unforgiving beneath her prone body. The faint smell of bleach teased the inside of her nose and she couldn't hear anything beyond the sound of her own breathing. When she finally opened her eyes, she saw the sliver of light from underneath the door. The glare from the hallway light hurt her eyes, casting pinwheels in her peripherals. She closed them, her sensitive vision causing the pain in her head to spike. Phosphenes rippled with discoloration at the pressure until the ringing in her head calmed down enough for her to blink.

Once her eyes adjusted to a darkness not unlike the one behind her eyelids, she realized that she had been imprisoned. She was still wearing her black dress, but her boots and coat had been stripped from her body and her satchel was gone.

The piece of dish cloth that had been wrapped around her hand as a makeshift bandage was replaced with a real one. She held her hand up close to her face and studied the gauze wrapped over her cut, white and pristine against her dirty hand. Her fingernails were shorter than she remembered them being, cut almost to the bed with the white no thicker than a staple. The scrapes on her arms and shins had scabbed up, but she could feel the residue of an antiseptic ointment on her skin.

Her injuries had been treated while she was unconscious. The thought was more disturbing than comforting. If Negan went through the trouble of fixing her up, that meant he intended to keep her alive and relatively whole.

Her muscles felt stiff from being left on the ground and they screamed in protest when Sam pulled herself up to sit. Her joints popped audibly, her muscles burning like they were on fire, but she pushed through it, pulling herself up just enough before collapsing against the wall. Breathing uneven, she looked at the door, studying it through the hair that hung in her face, but made no move to see if it was locked. Even if her desire to escape the room was immediate, she wasn't ready yet. She knew nothing about her new situation and had no resources. Assuming there wasn't a guard posted right outside the door, she wouldn't last five minutes.

She had no choice but to sit and wait for someone to come for her.

It wasn't long after she woke up that the music started playing.

 _'All my life I've been looking for the magic.'_

It startled her when it first came on. The opening drumming of its upbeat rhythm blared inside her little room. It played so loud that the door rattled in its frame. She could hear it playing in the hallway outside as well, echoing off the walls as the callback to the 70's had her jumping out of an uneasy doze. The sudden transition of going from total silence to pounding music shocked her system hard.

Sam did her best to tune the music out as she curled her legs towards her body and wrapped her arms around them. She rested her forehead on her knees and closed her eyes. Her chest pushed in and out at a steady pace as she counted her breaths.

 _'Fantasize on a silly little tragic.'_

Hours crawled by before she decided that no one was coming for her.

There was the possibility that the purpose of the room was for sensory deprivation. Like a prison, the room wasn't just a place to keep her incarcerated and sequestered from others. The small space, the darkness, the music - this could be Negan trying to break her, keep her under his thumb.

If that were the case, then it wouldn't work. It would take more than throwing a person in a dark room to make the human mind fold in on itself. Sam could still hear what was going on outside her door, could still smell whenever a savior walked past with a candy bar or sandwich in hand, could still see through the tiny sliver underneath her door. If Negan wanted her so cut off from the world where she would lose her mind, then he would have had better luck locking her in the basement like she had done to him.

 _Sleep_ deprivation, however, could be more easily achieved with the music. She wondered if the workers managed to get the power back on, but she dismissed the idea when she stared out into the hall through the space and saw the lights flickering with inconsistent energy flow. It was a backup generator. She took satisfaction in knowing that, with the size of the Sanctuary, playing music nonstop was a huge waste and was sucking up a considerable amount of very limited power. She truly hoped Negan was getting his jollies from this because he wouldn't be getting anything else out of it.

 _'I've been looking for the magic in my eyes.'_

She felt like a drunkard, left to dry out in a jail cell. They kept her inside the room longer than she thought they would. When she had woken up, she expected the door to open and reveal Negan, his tall frame a looming silhouette in the light of the hallway. Her heart would pound every time she heard footsteps in the hallway, but when minutes bled into hours and hours bled into a day, she stopped reacting. By the end of that first day Sam was willing to admit, inside the privacy of her own mind, that maybe she had underestimated Negan's patience.

She hated it in here. It was always cold and the smell of bleach burned her sinuses, made them feel dry and irritated; it was going to give her nosebleeds, and her dress could only blanket her legs so well before the cold seeped through that as well.

The first time the door opened, she was greeted by a familiar face, but it wasn't Negan.

With hair almost as stringy as hers, Dwight stared down at her with a mean look. She lifted her head from her arms and stared back at him through squinted eyes as he stood in the doorway, the light from the hallway pouring in behind him. He held a kitchen tray in his hands with a plastic plate and cup. He didn't say anything as he bent down and put the tray on the floor. She gave the tray a look, her nose curling up. The small serving of food on the plate looked like regurgitated MRE's and smelled vaguely of tuna and celery.

She looked back up at Dwight, but before she could speak, the savior closed the door with a firm slam, his scarred face disappearing from sight. Darkness engulfed her tiny space again as the lock engaged and the music started back up a minute later.

 _'Looking for the magic in my eyes.'_

Somewhere along the way, she had gotten used to the room, the darkness and the music. She was becoming desensitized. In the back of her mind she knew that wasn't good. She was becoming resigned to the possibility that she might die here, that Negan might keep her here until she wasted away to nothing. After resignation would come acceptance, and acceptance never bred a desire for freedom in anybody.

Realizing this gave Samantha back some of her power. Her will to keep going reignited just enough for her to remember what she was capable of.

By the second day she started establishing a routine for her guards.

The door would open once a day so she could be given a meal, but she was only ever let out of the room for bathroom breaks, which was surprisingly humane. She didn't waste them by keeping her eyes fixated on the floor. Using her hair as a curtain to cover her face, she scanned her surroundings whenever she was escorted to the bathroom. It was the same route every time, down the same unremarkable hallways and passing by the same blank-faced people, but she studied them nonetheless.

It wasn't just about her surroundings, either. It gave her a chance to study her captors as well.

She made note of everything, from both her bathroom breaks and the crack beneath her door. Her guards alternated between three saviors. She learned their names. She studied the sounds of their strides, learned to differentiate between the confident footsteps of Carter, the youngest, and the missteps of middle aged Sims with the dodgy left leg, and Joseph's (aka Fat Joey) heavy footfalls as he lumbered down the hall. From the shadows on the ground outside her door, she learned what time of day they changed shifts. From soft creaks of wood every time one of them moved, she knew that they had a chair outside her door where they took post.

Carter whistled and picked his nails with his pocket knife. Sims never uttered a sound and rarely moved. Joey liked to read comics and drink grape soda. Sims would nod off towards the end of his shift while Carter was always at least ten minutes late and Joey liked to leave his post halfway through to get a snack. None of them spoke to Sam. They barely even looked at her when they brought her daily meal.

It wasn't out of contempt or superiority. She could hear them whispering at the end of the hall during those moments when the CD went through its run and needed to be reset. They talked about her in hushed voices.

They spoke about rumors that they had heard around the Sanctuary and the night she was discovered - what she did and what she might do if she ever got out. They made her feel like an exotic animal in a zoo, a mysterious novelty to gawk at. People made her out to be something more interesting and dangerous than she really was, so much so they even had her guards acting skittish around her. Joey flinched every time she so much as lifted her head when he opened her door, and they always had him and Carter escort her to the bathroom, the two most physically capable, as if they thought Sam was trained in combat and could take them out with a flick of her wrist.

Ridiculous.

The only thing they had to worry about was the way Joey kept his keys clipped to his belt.

 _'She's been looking for the treasure.'_

The waiting was the hardest.

After studying the guards ran its course, she was left with nothing but herself. Sam didn't do well when she was understimulated. Without anything to occupy her attention, her thoughts wandered aimlessly to appease the suffocating boredom biting at the corners of her mind, and more often than not they wandered to places she'd rather they didn't.

That was partly why engineering felt like a natural choice for her. There was always something that needed to be fixed and tinkering was usually enough to keep her attention. She needed to catalog and compartmentalize things. Anything and everything. It kept her head quiet. She grew antsy and it was hard to keep a calm composure when her mind wasn't on an even keel. Every hour that went by, she felt her brain digest another part of itself, like the stomach when it was on the verge of starvation.

 _'Because a photograph is like an hourglass out of time.'_

The only thing to focus on was the song.

She thought on the song's beat, the song's meaning. The lyrics made her mind break off into tangents of nonsense about magic and Miser's Dream and the Salem Witch Trials, to how the human eye weighed about 0.25 ounces and horrific tragedies like the Crusades and the Khmer Rouge Regime (because her situation wasn't grim enough already, apparently). Of treasure and Jim Hawkins. Of Morpheus' hourglass at the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.

It was a mass spew of things she already knew, but her mind clung with a death grip anyways, as if thinking about them again would somehow produce a new fact that she didn't know and could process for a split second of relief.

The waiting tested her more than the lack of food and the poor attempt at isolation ever could. Maybe Negan understood this, with his acute perception. Or maybe he didn't. But if he wanted to punish her, he was on the right track, because Sam responded more to threats of the mind than threats of the body. He didn't have to know that this was getting to her, though. She could hide it.

Her mind was so starved, she was actually relieved when someone came to get her, when Negan finally came calling.

Towards the end of the third day, the music shut off and she heard heavy footsteps. She heard the jingling of keys.

Joey opened her door, and he was alone.

She was sitting in the corner of the room with her legs folded and her hands resting in her lap. She looked up at the portly savior through the black hair hanging in her face. She could tell the look unsettled him.

"Negan wants to see you in his office," he said. He was trying to sound tough, but the uncertainty in his tone gave him away. "I'm here to take you there. We're going to go to his floor and there isn't going to be any trouble from you, okay? I don't want to have to hurt you, so just do what I say."

He commanded her to get up, but it came out sounding more like a request. Sam pulled herself to her feet, using the wall to support her. Her legs tingled with pins and needles and the joints in her hips were stiff to the point of pain. When she stepped out of the room, Joey told her to hold out her wrists and he bound them with a ziptie, pulling it tight.

The floor felt cold under her bare feet and her steps sounded muted compared to Joey's. They echoed through the hall with the jingling of his keys on his belt; she was the only one who took any note. He always had them on his belt so he was used to the sound. Joey led her through the halls where they passed janitorial workers mopping the floors. She could feel their eyes on her as they went by, but she didn't turn her head to look at them. Her hair covered her face as Joey led her to the stairs that would take them to the next floor.

Just before they made it, Sam purposely stuck one foot in front of the other, making herself misstep. She stumbled forward and fell partially on to Joey, gripping his shirt as her knees hit the ground. Joey turned and grabbed her arm, attempting to steady her. In the commotion, her hands snaked up and unclipped the savior's keys from his belt. She held them tight in her hand, smothering the noise.

"Whoa," Joey said, keeping his hold on her. Sam breathed heavy and leaned most of her weight on him. "Are you okay? Do I need to get Doctor Carson?"

"No," she panted, faking fatigue. She made sure to keep the hand holding the keys hidden behind the skirt of her dress. "I'm alright...just a little weak..from not eating."

"Oh, yeah, sorry about that," he apologized, sounding sincere. "Negan said we're only allowed to feed you once a day. Maybe if your meeting with him goes well, he'll let you have more."

His suggestion didn't seem likely in the slightest, but his honest optimism didn't go unappreciated. Sam only nodded as she pretended to take a few moments to compose herself. Joey waited until she righted her feet to release her arm, but he kept a hand on her shoulder just in case.

"Think you can make it up the stairs?" he asked.

She nodded, straightening back up. "Yes."

As soon as Joey turned around to mount the stairs, Sam stuffed the keys into her bra. While she had been pretending to collect her bearings, she had carefully worked one of the keys off the ring behind her back, through feel alone. It was one at random that she hid in the other cup of her bra for safekeeping. She didn't know what it was for, but Joey had them labeled, she could look later.

There wasn't a plan for the keys, not yet. They were taken as a safety net. Even if Negan's attempts to break her had failed, Samantha wasn't immune to the desire for some kind of comfort.

She followed Joey up the stairs, keeping a good distance behind him as he struggled with the climb. Negan's office was on the top floor so this was quite the workout for the savior. Each time he had to stop and catch his breath it was stalling the inevitable, and she was okay with that.

Negan's floor looked different in the light, but she recognized the layout. They passed by a pair of doors that she knew to be the wives' parlor. There weren't any voices coming from it now so she could only assume the women were in their rooms. All was silent except for Joey's footfalls and Sam's bare feet padding against the floor as they came to another set of doors further down the hall that she hadn't notice last time. He raised his arm and knocked, waiting for a few seconds before opening them when there wasn't an answer.

It was an office that she assumed it was Negan's, but the man was absent.

With a hand on her shoulder, Joey guided her inside towards a chair facing the desk. She sat down while he stood behind her. They waited in silence with only the sound of a clock ticking. She looked over at it, wondering if it was accurate. Time was such a relative construct, even before the apocalypse. There was something freeing about shedding that constraint, but maybe that was only because Sam had been a student before the world had ended and the stress levels for fighting the undead were only smidgen higher than finals.

She looked around the rest of the room, taking in the lofty décor. The desk was made of mahogany that shined with a brilliant sheen of varnish. It had a matching set of bookshelves filled with books. There was a collection of garish decorations and wallhangings that held no collective theme and reflected nothing of Negan's personality other than being hulking distractions you couldn't help but stare at, with tacky faux animal skins and clunky lamps with eyesore shades added in.

The air smelled of fine leather from the furniture, but there was also the faint whiff of men's cologne, just under the smell of dust and carpet. The room was a stark contrast to the rest of the Sanctuary, like a room stuck out of time, a wormhole between two doors.

As the minutes ticked by, Sam could feel Joey shifting from foot to foot behind her. She could feel his uneasy with the wait and sympathized, but she didn't move from her own position. She sat with her shoulders back and her bound hands resting in her lap. Her bare feet were pressed together in a conscious effort to keep from thumping one against the ground.

After almost twenty minutes, the door to the office swung open and Negan walked in.

She didn't turn around to witness his grand entrance. From a decorative plate hanging on the wall behind the desk, she could see him in the reflection.

His dark hair was slicked back and his salt and pepper beard was groomed to perfection. He wore his leather jacket and brown trousers with the ends tucked into his boots. The zippers and the buttons on the labels shined like the light coming off a horse's eye, gleams of silver glossing the surface of obsidian black. The scarf around his neck looked pale green to her, but she knew it was a brilliant red. The scratches she had given him in the Sanctuary basement were still there, but they had scabbed over. She had forgotten all about them and seeing them again had her fingers curling into her palms, realizing why her nails had been trimmed down.

She could see him looking at her back and his smirk as he reached up to unwrap his scarf. He tossed it carelessly on to a lounge chair. She caught a glimpse of the baseball bat through the plate, but she averted her eyes and looked forward again when she saw Negan's eyes dart up towards the plate. In her peripheral, she could see his smirk grow, like he knew that she had been watching him.

There was the quiet sound of wood clanking against something as Negan put down his signature weapon (Sam refused to refer to it as "Lucille", deciding that the whole practice of naming inanimate objects as if they were people was ridiculous), propping it against the wall next to the door.

"Je-sus Christ," he groaned, pulling down the zipper of his leather jacket, the _zip_ cutting through the silence like a knife unsheathing. "Long fucking day, boys and girls. Daddy's fucking ready for his pipe and slippers."

Sam risked looking in the plate again, but Negan had moved. She heard him shuffling somewhere else, dressing down as if he was about to settle in for some recreational time. His disposition and attitude when he entered had been lax, leading her to believe that punishment wasn't imminent. Negan was the type of man who, if you needed to be afraid of him would make it blatant. He didn't lack rhyme or reason. If he wasn't making the effort to terrorize her, then she didn't need to worry about anything other than facing the man who nearly suffocated her with his bare hands.

"She give you any trouble on the way up here, Joe?" he asked.

She felt Joey shift behind her again. "No, sir."

"Good. You can get fucking lost now."

Joey made for the door, faster than she had ever seen him move. The door closed behind him with a condemning click as he left her alone with Negan.

She heard shuffling again before he came back into her view. He had stripped down to a grey t-shirt. She peered through her hair and watched him walk towards his desk. He sat down with a satisfied groan and sunk back into the leather of his chair. When he didn't speak, Sam finally raised her eyes and looked at him. He was watching her with his mouth set in a line and his eyes hooded, tired. They looked at each other, blue staring into brown as they sat in silence until Negan finally broke it.

"Sorry about that," he nodded towards the ziptie wrapped around her wrists, "bit of overkill, but considering what happened, I've decided not to take any more fucking chances with you. I'm sure you understand where I'm coming from."

She didn't respond. A lazy smirk bloomed across his face as his eyes twinkled with delight.

"You know, people have done some crazy ass shit to get out of working for points around here, but living in the goddamn vents? That's some straight up Andy Dufresne shit right there. I don't know whether to be boiling pissed or impressed, because that was some original fucking thinking. Fucking props for that."

He knew about the vents, not unexpected. He had three days to figure out how Sam was able to move around the Sanctuary without being noticed. With how tight of a ship he ran, there were only so many possibilities they could consider. She wondered which one of them thought of the vents first. Maybe Dwight. He had a sort of iceberg intelligence about him; unassuming on the surface, but depth below.

He had been the first to suspect Samantha didn't belong among them, after all, even if it had been fleeting.

"Oh yeah, I know about those," Negan said, nodding his head, reading her mind, "and your little hidey-hole."

Sam kept her face blank, but she felt the micro-expression flash across her face. It was one of surprise and panic. She hadn't expected him to find her hideout, partly because she hadn't expected to still be here in the Sanctuary and breathing at the same time. She had left quite a lot of things behind. Personal things.

Negan caught the expression, however brief (1/25th of a second), she knew he had. He caught it in the way she blinked. His smirk turned predatory.

With arrogance, Negan stood from his chair and reached under his desk. Sam watched as he picked up a filing box and set it on top. He flipped off the lid with an exaggerated flick of his hand, letting it fall to the floor. Though she remained stoic on the outside, her heart seized when he pulled out a stack of notebooks and papers, recognizing them to be hers. Her eyes moved around the room, looking for the rest of her stuff, suddenly feeling territorial. Her clothes, her blueprints, her unfinished projects - what did he do with all of it?

If Negan noticed the shift, he didn't let on. He picked up one of her notebooks and sat back down in his chair. He opened it up and licked the tip of his finger, using it to turn page after page until he settled on one. He ostentatiously cleared his throat before reading aloud.

"I shouldn't give such acclaim to a man with an ego, but give credit where credit is due. With how Negan runs his compound and the way he conducts himself as a leader, it's a wonder his followers don't erect a statue of him in the courtyard. If it could be carved from self-entitlement as it would from stone, his vanity would allot a structure at least twice the size of the main building."

He looked up, his eyebrows rising as he gave her a pointed look that begged _'really?_ '.

Something nasty twisted inside her stomach. She didn't like hearing her words being spoken in Negan's voice, especially when he took on a bright, cheery tone to mock her. It made her own thoughts sound like a stranger's.

"They can't see what's happening. Negan has them believing that no matter how horrible it is being apart of his community, it's still better than being outside with the _goblins_ \- cute name, by the way. He's dangerously manipulative. I'm expecting propaganda posters reminiscent of Mjolnir's work on the Sanctuary walls with his face slapped across them any day now."

It was one of her earlier entries, when she was still observing how the Sanctuary worked. Sam wasn't in the habit of keeping journals, neither before nor after the world fell, but when she found the fresh composition book in the marketplace, she felt the need to document what she had learned. They started out as disjointed notes to herself, like what time certain parts of the Sanctuary closed down for the night and where savior hot spots were, but after awhile they became full journal entries.

It wasn't the worst one she had written about Negan, but it wasn't flattering, either. Having him read it out loud felt grossly intrusive.

He scratched at his beard as he flipped ahead through the entries.

"The one you wrote about Dwight was funny; 'rat-faced and constantly underfoot'. More fucking tame than what I've called the scrawny prick myself, but that sums him up just as well, I suppose. You went easier on him than you did me, which is kind of bullshit since you had no fucking idea who I was. Judgmental much?"

She still didn't respond, she only blinked at him. He chuckled and flipped through a couple more pages. His brown eyes danced along the college ruled pages as he abashedly read through Sam's private thoughts right in front of her. A hand came up to rubbed at his chin again and she could hear the scrape of coarse hair against skin from where she sat. She watched him, his mouth moving slightly as he read to himself.

He looked back up at her, amusement still plastered across his face.

"You're a cutie pie, Mouse, but you're also a fucking freak, and not in the sexy way." He raised the book and waved it. "From what you've got in these notebooks, I can't tell if you some kind of baby-faced, Einstein/MacGyver love child genius, or a fucking nutcase. Don't get me wrong, though, I had a fucking blast reading them. A lot more interesting than the shit I've got up on these fucking shelves, that's for sure."

He opened the book again and flipped to a page that was dog-eared. He must have done it because Sam didn't fold page corners, not even in her own notebooks; a nasty habit she had never developed because most of the books she had read in the past were loans and rentals. Couldn't damage those.

Negan pointed out another entry, smiling and shaking his head in amused disbelief. "Here you talk about how metronomes remind you of your first period, which was as entertaining as it was fucking weird, but then after that you go on about social politics and some Michel Foucault guy for six pages, front and back, and I tapped out. Felt like I was reading a fucking encyclopedia."

Snapping the notebook shut, he tossed it unceremoniously on to his desk before leaning back in his chair and tipping his head to the side, regarding her thoughtfully.

"You know, you are something else. I'm not bullshitting you, you really are. I can barely wrap my head around it."

Sam narrowed her eyes and studied his expression. He was smiling and he seemed genuine, but he always smiling. He was a man of smiles. On record, there were nineteen different types of smiles, all varying up and down the emotional spectrum, but from what she had observed so far, Negan seemed to have twice that amount. He had a smile for every emotion, for every day of the week. She couldn't decipher them all.

He noticed her scrutiny and changed his smile, going from amusement to triumph, like he was proud of himself for finally drawing some sort of reaction from her, even if it had yet to be a verbal one. Because she knew that was what he had been fishing for - a reaction.

"The vents were innovated, but disguising yourself as one of my wives? That was fucking genius!" he laughed. "Not only could you get whatever the fuck you wanted from the market, but you could go wherever you wanted and nobody would have fucking questioned it. I talked to some of my people who remembered you, and they told me that you said you were getting something for _me_ , just like when I caught you in the workshop. And you were fucking convincing, too. If I was anybody else, I would have fallen for that shit hook, line and fucking sinker."

She doubted that. She might be able to keep a straight face, but Sam was never a good actress. If any of those workers had been just an ounce less terrified of Negan, then they would have seen through her guise. However, if he wanted to put her on a pedestal like his followers did, then she wasn't going to correct him. Overestimation could be just as dangerous as underestimation.

It was the same mistake, really, and if Negan wasn't going to learn from what happened, that would be her advantage.

"I mean hey, don't get me wrong, I can't fucking blame you for goin' that route. My wives have some awesome perks."

He was leaning back in his chair, the leather creaking under his weight.

" _But_ ," he continued, "the only reason they get those is because I get the perks of having them as wives, and cheating me out of what I'm owed is a big fucking no-no around here. I had one of my guys make an estimate of how much stuff you took from me, and Mouse, you owe me a Holy hell amount of points right now. Regardless of how this little meeting of ours ends where I decide your fucking fate in this shitty world, we're going to need to settle this.

The crap you took from the commissary I'm willing to look the other way since you didn't take anything that can't easily be replaced, and because I'd like to think I can be a nice fucking guy when I want to be, but if you wanted to be a wife so bad, all you had to do was ask. Don't you think that would have been a lot fucking easier than sneaking around, hoping to avoid talking to the wrong asshole?"

Rhetorical, or at least, she thought it was. He seemed to enjoy the sound of his voice and she wondered why he even bothered trying to have a conversation with her when he could go find a mirror.

"If you wanted to have some playtime as a wife, you can have some fucking playtime. You just have to play with me, and my favorite fucking game is House," he smirked before tacking on a second thought. "I like playing Doctor, too, but I tend to get further than an invasive physical with House."

He winked at her, making her nose curled up.

He laughed before standing from his chair. Sam watched as he stepped around his desk. It took everything she had to keep from moving as the distance between them closed. He stopped right next to her chair until her head was leveled with his lower stomach. He was so close, she could smell his cologne, the same spicy scent that invaded her senses down in the basement. Now associating it with danger, she felt her hackles raise. She turned her head and craned it back to look up at him.

"What do you say, Mouse?" he said, smiling down at her with a lecherous smile, his dark eyes twinkling with mirth.

In move that did not match his expression, he reached out and brushed away the bangs that hung in her eyes with a surprisingly gentle touch, his fingertips ghosting over the skin of her forehead.

"Wanna introduce your Minnie to my Mickey?"

She didn't know which she was more disgusted by; his proposition for sex, or the fact that he had just referred to their genitals as Disney characters. She realized what he was trying to do. It wasn't an exaggeration when Sam thought of him as a posturing peacock or a cat on the prowl. He was invading her space, using his bigger size to tower over her and spoke without social grace. She knew what he wanted from her. What he _really_ wanted.

He wanted dominance.

She couldn't tell if he actually wanted to have sex with her (he kept his eyes locked on to hers, not anywhere else), but this was another attempt to claim dominance over her. He was purposely being vulgar to make her uncomfortable so she would shy away. He used his crass language and outlandish behavior to shock and intimidate people, to throw them off by acting like a cartoon. She learned very quickly that Negan thrived on shock value. He loved attention, both positive and negative. It gave him his power and control.

Samantha had invaded his territory without his knowledge. She had taken things from him without being noticed. She had stolen directly from his private floor. She had masqueraded as one of the people closest to him and used her position to take even more. And then, when she was finally discovered, she got away. Maybe not completely, but she got away from him.

He was a fully grown man who had failed to subdue a woman not even close to his weight class and had gotten himself locked in the basement of his own home while she went on to vandalize his property and assault his men. She must have served a great blow to his image as the infallible leader of the saviors. The ordeal left him little room to save face, and now this was his attempt to get some of it back.

But Sam had already seen through him for what he really was. He was a nobody. He was a nobody in the pre-apocalyptic world who became a somebody only because he knew how people worked. Types like him always found power in times of crisis. He was charismatic and knew how to use that to manipulate others. The best response, she decided, would be no response. To give him absolutely nothing. She wasn't here to indulge his cravings for validation.

If he wanted to play this game, then fine. She had an amazing poker face.

With her eyes locked on his, she stared back at Negan, matching his stare with her own. She had a mean stare. Her black hair highlighted the planes of her sharp features and her blue eyes were piercing with their crystalline color. She held her ground against him, squaring her proverbial shoulders and letting him know through her body language, explicitly, what she thought of the offer. She trusted that he was like her in that regard, an observer of people.

His eyes danced back and forth between hers, searching her face for an intense moment, before letting out a chuckle. He got the message.

"Yeah, didn't think you'd go for that."

He stepped back out of her space and she was suddenly able to breath again. The tension left with him. He moved around his desk to sit back in his chair. Just as he settled, there was a knock on the door.

He called for them to enter and the door opened to reveal Joey. He looked nervous.

Negan glared, annoyed to see the fat bastard again. "What the fuck do you want? Weren't you just in here?"

Joey glanced between Negan and Sam, stuttering, "I'm sorry to interrupt, sir, but I ah, I just-"

"Fucking out with it."

"It's my keys, sir, my keys are missing. I had them on me when I took her out of the cells, but on my way back I realized they weren't on my belt. I think she must've..." he trailed off as he gestured weakly in Sam's direction.

Her expression betrayed nothing as Negan's attention shifted back on to her. He scrutinized her with an amused look in his eyes, his eyebrows raised almost to his hairline.

"Did you take Fat Joey's keys, Samantha?" he asked her, as if talking to a child.

She sat in her chair, looking at Negan with that same blank stare. They looked at one another while Joey stood awkwardly by the door, watching them with bated breath. When she refused to answer, Negan's expression dropped into a dark frown and his brown eyes hardened to black. It was amazing how his face could go from open and handsome to absolutely hideous with a single shift in attitude. His deep voice came out almost in a growl, the threat ringing clear as a bell.

" _Don't_ make me come over there and search you."

Seeing that he was serious, Sam exhaled through her nose as she reached into her dress and pulled out the set of keys from her bra. In a petty act of defiance, she tossed them on to the floor with a loud clatter instead of handing them to Joey, forcing the savior to bend down and pick them up.

She kept her eyes on Negan, but when she saw Joey stall in the corner of her eye, she turned her head to see him bent into a crouch and his hand hovering just over his keys, staring at her. There was a look of pure awe in his eyes as if she had just performed a magic trick, like she had made the set of keys appear out of thin air and not from her cleavage. Sam shifted a little in her seat at the attention. She looked at him with her brow furrowed, but he still didn't move from his dumbstruck stance.

Negan caught the look as well, moving his eyes between the two. A scowl twisted his features, worsening each time he looked at Joey's fat face staring at Sam before barking, "what the fucking fuck are you staring at? You got your keys back, get the fuck out!"

Joey snapped out of his stupor and stood up, mumbling a nervous apology with his head down while stuffing his keys into his pants pocket. Sam turned her head to look over her shoulder and watched him flee from the office.

"And I'd savor the warmth coming off those keys if I were you, because I'm guessing that's the closest you've been to touching a pair of tits in a long fucking time!" Negan called after him.

The door shut with a resonating slam this time and the older man chuckled, pleased with himself. When Sam looked back at him, all traces of anger were gone and gleefulness replaced it. He bit his bottom lip as he looked at her.

"You see that?" He gestured towards the door, smiling like a maniac. " _That's_ what I really fucking like about you."

He leaned forward in his chair, putting his elbows on the desk.

"Usually, in these types of situations, I have people threatening me, giving me the stink eye, telling me how badass they think they are and how they've faced scarier men than me, blah, blah and all that horseshit. Real self-righteous kind of crap that makes my balls itch, you know? I have no problem fixing their fucking wagons. I just drive a spike up their asses in some rough anal play so they can be put on my wall - much better use to me like that anyways.

But you, Mouse, you let your actions do the talking, don't you? You don't need to say a Goddamn word to tell me what you're capable of. You just need the smallest opportunity to prove it. I fucking _love_ that. You're not a talker, you're a doer. When the shit hits the fan, all those fucking big talkers are too busy picking their ass cracks to move, but not only are you out of the way of the shit spray, you're standing behind the fucking fan. It's _fan_ -fucking-tastic."

' _Clever_ ,' she thought sarcastically.

"You want a fucking drink?" he asked suddenly.

Before she could respond, he pulled himself to his feet with a spring. She watched him walk towards a large wooden case and opened it to reveal a fully stocked mini bar. He let out an excited noise as he crouched down and picked through it contents. She couldn't see what he was getting out. All she could hear was the sound of glass clinking as he moved the bottles. It wasn't until he stood up and turned around that she saw the bottle of whiskey in his hands. He gave her a smile and wiggled his eyebrows before placing the bottle on top of the bar and grabbing two tumblers.

The amber liquid swashed in the bottle as he yanked out the cork, filling each tumbler with about two fingers of whiskey. He put the bottle back on the bar and picked up the glasses, making his way back. He sat in his chair and put one tumbler in front of him before reaching over and placing the other in front of Sam.

It was another challenge, she realized. She knew that a person's ability to hold their liquor was a common way of measuring the strength of their character. The only thing it really proved was the strength of someone's liver, but if Negan was issuing a challenge, regardless of how ridiculous, she would rise to it just to deny him the opportunity for control.

The little mouse could hold her ground against his vulgar offers, but could she keep footing directly on his level? She knew that she could, but a drinking contest wasn't the best way to prove it. Sam had never so much as had a sip of wine before in her entire life. Alcohol never held much appeal to her because it never occurred to her to drink something that didn't taste good, and she didn't like the idea of not being clear-headed at all times. She spent her twenty-first birthday watching a classic movie double-feature at a discount theater by herself before going home to study for a test she had the next day.

Still, her hand curled around the smooth glass. She stared down at the liquid that was surprisingly vibrant in color to her deficient eyesight. The strong scent of alcohol wafted up to tease her nose with a rich smell that wasn't entirely unpleasant. Negan watched as she brought the tumbler up to her lips. He raised his own glass to her before downing his drink in one swallow. Sam followed suite, hesitating for only a second. She took it like cough syrup; the kind your parents gave you as a child that had the consistency of half-dried paste and tasted nothing like cherries.

It went all in one go while she tried not to let it touch her tongue, but she stalled at the last second and her throat closed, making it all pool into her mouth instead. The whiskey burned like fire. Her eyes widened at the taste and she let out a distressed sound muffled by her closed lips.

She brought the tumbler back up to her mouth so she could spit out the foul liquid. Once it was gone, she slammed the tumbler back on the desk, nearly knocking it over. Her hand came up to her face as she coughed against the flavor, her eyes watering to the point of tears. It tasted like she had taken a swig of nail polish remover.

Negan laughed at her reaction, reaching out to pick up her glass and knocking back the contents without effort. Sam watched him, her nose curling up even more as he drank the whiskey she had spat out.

 _'That was in my mouth,_ ' she thought, her mouth still burning.

He set the tumbler back on the desk, smacking his lips.

"God I love this stuff. Really puts the fucking hair on your balls - if you have balls, of course."

 _'He drank backwash.'_

Negan squared his shoulders and rolled his neck to get the kinks out, ready to get down to business. He adjusted himself in his chair, sitting up straighter.

"Now, fucking pleasantries aside, we need to talk about how you're going to pay me back. You caused a lot of fucking damage the other night. I've got a broken mirror in one of the ladies' room, my men had to throw out six scorched cafeteria tables, janitorial is still cleaning up the cafeteria, you sent one of my men to the infirmary with a dislocated shoulder and a concussion, plus a whole fuck load of workers scared out of their fucking minds. None of that shit is even remotely okay."

 _'That's how you get Mono,_ ' she thought, still thinking about the whiskey he drank.

Negan slammed his hand down on the desktop when he realized Sam wasn't listening. "Are you fucking pay attention?"

"Why am I here?" she spoke. The horrible aftertaste was too much, she had to say something. Her voice came out in a rasp from going so many days without saying a word. It took on an even huskier tone than usual.

"Fucking finally, she speaks!" he exclaimed, smiling big. "You're here because shit needs to be discussed, and because I'm not going to get much use out of you if you're locked in a fucking cell all the time."

"Use?" she echoed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"I told you, you owe me a shit ton and you thought I was just going to kill you? No, that isn't how things are fucking done around here. Normally, any motherfucker who steals a free meal ticket in my Sanctuary and then digs their fucking nails into my face would have their brains turned into mashed taters by my Lucille, but like I said, what happened, what you did, that was the most fucking impressive thing I've seen in a long time. Way too impressive to just fucking kill you. That would be the biggest fucking waste. You've got something to offer the Sanctuary, you can contribute, but if you die, I don't get shit."

That didn't sound promising. It was a relief to know he had no plans to kill her, but it didn't seem like he had any to let her go, either. If she wasn't going to die, she'd rather move on from the Sanctuary, even if meant living on the road again.

"You know, when I was in high school I was voted for one of those 'most likely, least likely' yearbook award things. Do you know what it was for?" he asked.

"Most likely to emulate Stalin?" she replied.

"No," he said, so amused by this whole interaction that he let the comment go. "I was voted most likely to do good."

Sam always thought those yearbook traditions were just popularity contests, and she supposed this was proof. She didn't know if she should feel satisfied by this discovery, since she was voted 'worst person to talk to' in her own senior class, but then again she didn't need a fake award to tell her how unpopular she was (to this day she couldn't figure out how the yearbook committee got permission to put that in as a category, but it was probably for the same reason she was banned from participating in the science fair).

"I was also voted best smile," he said, grinning in emphasis, "but that's not related."

"I'm sure Stalin thought he was doing good."

And maybe Stalin had a good smile, too, but pictures rarely showed him doing so except for a subtle upturn of his full mustache. Never any teeth.

"Well, he was considered a revolutionary, wasn't he?"

"A revolutionary who caused the worst man-made famine in history for his own people."

"Can we fucking get off Stalin? I'm trying to make a goddamn point here."

Sam straightened in her chair, resigning to make another comment.

Negan rolled his eyes.

"Figures the one time you decide to speak is to fucking annoy me. Where the fuck was I going with this?"

He leaned back in his chair, scratching at his chin again as he tried to remember his point.

How remarkable, Sam thought, how he could stand speaking like that. All the time. She had never had a very high tolerance for curse words herself, having been brought up in a household that generally didn't use them, but since meeting Negan, she was beginning to despise them.

She supposed she was a bit old fashioned in that sense, believing that swearing was a sign of lower intelligence, regardless of how many new studies there were that tried to prove otherwise. Sam thought cursing was a blight on language skills no matter how smart a person was. It was rude and repulsive, end of story. It was no different than passing gas or picking your nose in public. It was a lack of common courtesy. It was lazy. It made proper articulation a recherché skill, like being able to write a grammatically correct paper without using spellcheck (she lamented this one on a personal level because she had participated in spelling bees in her childhood and had been quite proud of her, now obsolete, skill).

She acknowledged that one or two curse words here and there wasn't unreasonable, because as stated, she didn't have a high tolerance, but she did have _some_ tolerance. However, to do what Negan did - that was too much. It was like playing a song off an old vinyl or a scratched CD, and each time he cursed it was like listening to it skip. There would be a rhythmic flow of words and a steady beat, then an ugly lapse of white noise that threw it all off.

In Samantha's head, it was the Devil's Trill Sonata being played by the actual devil, only he had Tourette Syndrome and had to stop after every verse to compulsively yell expletives.

Needless to say, she didn't care much for this conversation.

"I'm still not sure exactly how long you've been hiding in my walls, but I assume long enough to get the gist of how I do business, right?" he asked.

"You..." Sam's mind lapsed on an appreciate word to describe just what Negan did to others, " _employ_ other communities to work for you, make them pay for protection, and in return you get to take whatever you want from them. With the people in your compound, they work for points to buy the things they need from the commissary. Everybody works for you. Everybody answers to you."

"Mmhm," Negan hummed, "and now I want you to work for me, too."

"No."

"Why not? You got other prospects I don't know about? You got some secret underground lair somewhere to hide from the shit storm, or a network of tunnels you can fucking crawl around in like those nasty, ass-naked moles that look like dicks with bucked teeth you see on the nature channel?"

"Because I don't want to."

Negan thought for a minute, pursing his lips and keeping his gaze on her before asking: "Where'd you go to school?"

"Nowhere special. Community college first because it was cheaper before moving on to an unremarkable university. I lived mostly on scholarships and whatever I could get from side jobs."

"Your parents didn't have the money to help?"

"No."

"What was your area of study?"

"Mechanical engineering."

"Uh-huh," he said slow and contemplatively. He gave her another thoughtful look before smiling in a way that was probably intended to be friendly, but Sam found disturbing instead. "Tell you what, Mouse, I've got a proposition for you that I think you're going to like. What if I told you that you could have whatever you want here - good meals, nice clothes, a comfy room all to yourself, a job catered to your expertise - and all you have to do is what you've been doing, but _for_ me instead of against me. What would you think of that?"

"No."

"Don't be a fucking martyr. It's a good fucking deal and you know it. I respect crazy-ass badasses, but not martyrs, and given your precarious fucking situation right now, it won't do you any goddamn favors to shatter my image of you."

"I'm not being a martyr. You gave me your offer and I'm not interested."

"If this is a fucking morals thing, I'm going to be pissed."

"It's not. I just don't want to work for you."

He narrowed his eyes at her, the onset of frustration pulling at the corners of his mouth.

"Even if I did let you go, I would keep all your crap. Everything. You would be fucking lucky if I sent you out those gates wearing a pair of crotchless panties, let alone any supplies that'll help you live past sundown. How long do you think you would last with nothing going for you?"

"Longer than you'd think."

Negan smirked. "Oh, I don't doubt that. But I guess we won't ever get to find out, will we? Because you're staying right fucking here. So why don't you take a fucking minute to think about my offer again, yeah? Because it's the only fucking one you're going to get."

Sam recognized that it was a good deal, probably the best this new world could offer, but his charming smiles and laidback demeanor weren't enough to make his words feel any less like a bear trap, spring-loaded and waiting to snap her ankle in half, leaving her grievously wounded and vulnerable.

Everything was going just as she had expected it to. Negan was a walking contradiction, predictable and unpredictable at the same time. He was looking for her compliance so he was going to charm her first by offering her something she needed, and when that didn't work he would try to intimidate her by talking down to her, and when _that_ didn't work, he would force her.

Personally, she thought the attempt to charm was the coiled snake of the three, because Negan's rewards were just as dangerous as his punishments. The only difference between the two was that one of them risked damage to her character, because choosing to work for him would have her accepted into his fear-mongering militia that exploited others for personal gain.

But then again, it was all relative, wasn't it? Because that was how Negan was as a leader; black and white, his leadership based on a system of rewards and punishments. Working for him would get you screwed sooner or later. It didn't matter if she accepted his offer or not - willingly or unwillingly, she was trapped. _That_ was how he did business.

When she was younger, her cousin Payat would dunk her head in the pond behind her house. He would sneak up behind her as she watched the tadpoles take their first swim and push her on to her stomach. He would drag her over to the edge and dig a knee into her back to keep her still while he dunked her. It was cruel and hateful. He wouldn't stop until she said whatever it was he wanted her to say, or did whatever he wanted her to do, forcing her to say embarrassing things or do his chores and homework. She remembered how the desperation for air had her relenting every time.

However, she knew that no matter what she said or promised to do for him, he would always dunk her head under one last time before letting go, and it was always longer than the others.

Looking at Negan, she felt the ghost of her cousin's fat fingers on the back of her neck.

"You want to know what I'm thinking?" he asked her. "I'm thinking you might need a few more days in the cells, you know, so you can have some nice quiet time to consider my offer more, and I'm going to give you some homework to do while you're in there. Nothing hard. No papers, no pencils - because like fuck I trust you with a fucking pencil. Just some food for thought. I want you to think about three things," he held up three fingers to emphasize, "what happened to you, what could've happened to you and what can _still_ happen to you. Once you do that, I'm fucking positive you'll come to the right decision."

He jerked his head in the direction of the door without waiting for a response, saying gruffly:

"Now get the fuck out of my office."

She hesitated for a moment in her seat, surprised that he had ended the meeting so abruptly and without grandiose, but when he opened one of her notebooks and started reading again, she knew she had been dismissed. She stood from her chair, ignoring the stiffness in her legs, and walked towards the office door.

"Oh, and one more thing," he said.

She released the breath that she had been holding, knowing it had been too good to be true.

With her bound hands on the doorknob, she turned to see him getting up from his desk. She watched as he walked towards her and tensed when he didn't stop until he was well into her personal space again. She released the doorknob and moved to the side to create some space, but he followed her, crowding her against the wall. He was close enough to see her muscles seize under her skin and the goosebumps that erupted from his breath wafting over her. He was close enough to feel her body heat, close enough to see the faint splash of freckles that peppered the swell of her chest. He stared intently at them.

Sam felt disgust at his attention before realizing that he wasn't staring at her cleavage in any sordid way, but more critical.

His eyes came up to meet hers as he brought up his ungloved hand. He smirked as he extended his pointer finger, wiggling it in the air before tapping it against her exposed collarbone. Feeling ensnared between the wall and Negan's towering body, she turned her head up and away from what he was doing, fear and embarrassment rooting her where she stood.

Heat flooded her cheeks as he trailed his finger along the skin of her collarbone and down her chest, tracing the v-cut of her dress and the soft flesh that pooled out the top until it reached the valley between her breast. She breath lodged in her throat with a quiet gasp as his fingers dipped inside.

It lasted only a second when she felt him pull something from out of her bra and his touch left her body. She opened her eyes and looked back at him to see the extra key she had stolen, pinched between his thumb and pointer finger. He held it up between their noses, a cold expression on his face.

"Whatever you decide - whatever _I_ decide to do with you - I can promise you, Mouse, right here and now, I am _never_ going to underestimate you again. So you best behave, because you're not going anywhere."

Even with her back almost against the wall, Sam's foot moved back out of reflex, but she flinched when something sharp pricked the heel of her bare foot. Negan saw it and looked down, smirking.

"Careful there," he said, putting the key in his pants pocket before reaching down.

He picked up his baseball bat that had been left propped up against the wall behind her. He held it with both hands, looking down at it with a sick fondness while Sam stared at the crooked barbed wire wrapped around its head. His eyes met hers again as he gripped the handle in one hand and pointed the business end in her face.

"Once my Lucille gets the taste of someone's blood, she ain't satisfied until she fucking covered in it."

~O~

The hinges of the door creaked as Joey opened Sam's cell for her. Using his pocket knife, he cut the zip tie around her wrists. There was another tray of pseudo food placed in the corner next to the door, but she ignored it, stepping towards the back wall and lowering herself to the ground. The whiskey served as a sort of anti-apéritif, killing any desire to eat. She laid down and curled up into the fetal position facing the wall.

Joey lingered in the door way, his massive shadow taking up most of the back wall.

"That was really cool what you did," he said. "Cool as in amazing, I mean, not cool as in okay. I could've gotten in a lot of trouble for that, but you were like a ninja, I didn't even feel you take them."

He trailed off, expecting her to say something back, but she didn't, and after a couple seconds of silence, she heard him shift and he slowly shut her door. The sound of the lock's mechanism and the jingle of keys was the last thing she heard before she was left in solitude once again.

As she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, she didn't think of anything. Not even about Negan's offer. She had given him her answer and nothing would be different in the morning.

* * *

 **AN: The flashback in the beginning was done to give more insight on Sam's character before her one-on-one sit down with Negan, but if you guys enjoyed seeing scenes of Sam's past, then I might consider including a few more throughout the story. Let me know in a review if you would be interested in that.**

 **Don't forget to let me know what you think of the new chapter! I love hearing your guys' opinions.**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	7. Crossed Wires

**AN: Thanks so much for the reviews last chapter! I really appreciate the support from you guys and I love hearing from you.** **If you come across any mistakes let me know in a review and I'll fix them. Thanks!**

 **Recently Re-edited: 5/13/19**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead or its characters.**

* * *

 _Crossed Wires, or, "Negan reveals more to Samantha than he probably intended"._

 _~O~_

Samantha didn't know what she had done to compel Negan to grant her a night without music blaring in her cell, but she should have known that it wasn't done out of sympathy or the goodness of his heart, nor that he would give her those days of careful contemplation like he had said he would. It was the very next morning that had the man banging on the door to her cell with his baseball bat, rudely awakening her with the violent pounding.

"Cock-a-doodle-fucking-do!"

Laying on her side in a position that wasn't comfortable whatsoever but at least allowed her to sleep for a couple of hours, Sam lifted her head from her arms as her door swung open, the horrible crink in her neck making her wince. Her dirty hair hung in her face as she squinted against the glare of artificial lighting pooling into her little first circle of hell.

Negan stood in the doorway in his full 'leader of the Saviors' garb; black leather jacket and scarf with his dark hair slicked back. He held his signature weapon in one hand while the other balanced a food tray with a domed lid. He looked down at her with a dazzling smile that had her face twisting up in an ugly expression of contempt from behind her hair. She felt like death warmed over, grumpy from being woken up from the most decent night of sleep she has had in days and already frustrated with Negan's presence.

"Wakey-wakey, Sam I Am, I've got some green eggs and ham for you," he said in a sing-song tone, ending it with a chuckle.

He bent at the waist to put the tray down, pulling off the lid to reveal, not green eggs and ham, but a small helping of regular scrambled eggs, two slices of toast and a half-pint bowl of oatmeal.

A silent night of sleep and an edible breakfast? What a rare state Negan must be in. As Sam blinked the sleep from her eyes, she wondered what he wanted.

She ignored the stiffness in her limbs and pushed herself up into a sitting position. The morning air from the hallway ghosted in from behind Negan making goosebumps erupt along her skin. Suppressing a shiver, she looked down at the food before craning her head back to stare at the man sucking all the space in her tiny room. Negan smirked down at her, nodding towards the tray.

"Hurry up and eat before I give it to fat Joey," he told her. "We've got a long day ahead of us and I don't have time to dick around."

"I thought you were going to leave me in here," she reiterated, her tone not entirely dry because of the lack of water.

"Yeah, well I changed my fucking mind. You can still think about my offer while you fix the shit that you broke because I'm going to make you pay your fucking penance whether you work for me or not, so hurry the fuck up. You've got five minutes to eat before I'm taking you out of there."

He turned and left her doorway. She still didn't have any appetite to speak of, but she forced herself to consume the given breakfast. She didn't know what Negan had planned, but it would be best if she had energy to burn. She would need it if today was indeed going to be a long day spent with the man. It wasn't easy to eat the food, it tasted like ash against her dry tongue. Chewing took effort and it slid down her throat with resistance, almost to the point where she was literally choking it down.

Five minutes later, she was being nudged down the hallway, still only in her black dress with her hands bound and Negan following close behind. He hadn't told her where they were going and it wasn't until Sam recognized the route to the main workshop that she realized he wanted her to fix the Sanctuary's electrical system. The overhead lights still glowed dim and flickered with a weak flow of energy, showing that the compound was still running on a backup generator.

Negan's men weren't able to fix the power themselves so the leader was going to make her do it. The thought made her smirk from behind her hair, satisfaction easing the hollowness in her stomach where her breakfast couldn't.

It was just the two of them with Negan confident that he could keep her in line - which he could.

There would be no spontaneous absconding from her, not with him standing well within grabbing distance. Sam might overestimate her mental abilities from time to time (hence her current ordeal), but she never did so with her physical ones. She knew she couldn't take Negan one-on-one so her chances for escape were very much nil. Of course she had mapped out several scenarios of escape during her time in her cell, but they were more flights of fancy than anything else, something to keep her mind occupied, scenarios that would only work if she had the gadgets of James Bond and the acrobatic abilities of a Russian Cossack.

They made their way through the halls alone, but as soon as they entered common areas, they began to pass other people. Without even having to look around, Sam felt the stares.

Workers and saviors alike watched them, glancing up from their work as they caught sight of the Sanctuary's newest prisoner finally making an appearance. There were a few attempts at being inconspicuous, but most stared openly at her as they passed. Hushed whispers and curious looks were sent her way. The interest glinting in the workers' eyes made them look more alive than she had ever seen them, even with their gaunt faces and ragged clothing. She kept her eyes forward, but she could feel every bit of attention directed at her while rabid-fire gossip spread like the goblin virus.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, pulling her to a stop as Negan's voice boomed out.

"Hey!" he shouted at the gawking workers. "Am I fucking invisible here? Show some goddamn respect!"

The whispering stopped as everyone in the hall lowered themselves. With a knee to the ground and their eyes downcast, Negan nudged Sam forward again, continuing their trek towards the workshop. Once they passed, she could hear shuffling as the workers got back on their feet and the whispering started again, only louder now that her and Negan were leaving earshot.

Part of her was disgusted by the display of total submission, but another part of her was glad to be out of the spotlight. She wasn't just wary of the saviors; Sam didn't like being a conversation piece for the workers, either. Her loss of anonymity left her feeling more exposed than ever and she didn't trust anybody residing in the Sanctuary.

While some would see enslaving communities and smashing skulls with a baseball bat as horrific acts of violence, Negan would see them as joyful jaunts in the park. That was the kind of man he was, the kind of leader. Sam understood that a leader's perspective of the world didn't always reflect his followers', and that most were just fellow survivors trying to get by. However, you can't spend any amount of time serving under a man like Negan and not have your mind warped in some way. Even if the workers weren't outright brutal like the saviors, she didn't doubt that they would kill if Negan pushed them hard enough. They were already living on the very edge of desperation; it wouldn't take much to send them over.

The whole thing made Sam feel like a lamb among lions, and maybe that was Negan's intention. He could have easily taken another route to the workshop, bypassing everyone, but instead he took her through the building during one of the busiest parts of the day. He wanted her to feel vulnerable and scrutinized. This was all another attempt to showboat his power. She could feel the gratification coming off him and she didn't need to turn her head to know that he was smiling. She wasn't impressed.

She was relieved when Negan pushed open the doors to reveal a workshop empty of its workers. He must have ordered them elsewhere so it would just be the two of them. She let him guide her towards the back where the generator and the power box was. On the ground was a toolbox overflowing with tools, sticking out of the top while some were scattered on the floor. Next to that was her satchel.

Something inside Samantha broke as she recognized it. She walked with quick feet over to it and dropped to her knees, snatching up the bag without asking for permission. Her hands shook a little as she flipped the top open and unzipped the compartment. Inside she saw her ohmmeter, her lockpicking kit and her penlight. She stared in disbelief. It was all there.

When her bag had been taken from her, she never expected to see any of it again. She was able to draw comfort from having it in her hands again. The worn material against her fingertips felt like silk in its familiarity. Reaching inside she pulled out her ohmmeter, the events of that awful night coming back. All of this happened because she wanted to fix it. It felt bittersweet. She was torn between caressing it and throwing it against the wall. She turned the device over in her hands. On the back she saw something carved into it.

Her brow furrowed, she brought the ohmmeter closer to examine the little symbol that she was positive wasn't there before. She swept her thumb over the fresh etching, trying to decipher its meaning. It took her a moment to realize that it was a crude drawing of "Lucille". The comfort she had felt only seconds ago burned up like a dry plain. She reached inside her satchel for her other things, examining them closer only to find the same symbol carved. It was even drawn on the back of her satchel in black marker.

It was a brand, she realized with a flare of rage. Negan had branded her things with the saviors' logo, claiming them as his and making sure that they could never really be hers again. Sure, he could give them back to her to use, but the brand made them a loan. She stared down at the little etching with a strong loathing.

She looked up at Negan who had been watching her.

"Problem?" he asked, his eyebrows rising and his tone light with faux innocence.

"No," she managed to ground out.

"Chop, chop then," he said, motioning towards the power box. "Shit's not going to fucking fix itself."

 _'Clearly not your men, either_ ,' she almost said out loud.

After he cut the ziptie from her wrists with the bowie knife he kept strapped to his belt, Negan grabbed a fold-out chair that had been left nearby. He propped his bat up against the generator and sat down, sitting on the chair backwards so he was straddling the back with his long legs. The chair was positioned in such a way that he could watch Sam without hindrance. She added the contempt she had for him to the mounting pile of toxic emotions already inside of her. She looked at the tools sprawled out on the floor and then towards power box.

While there were signs of tinkering, the power box didn't look much better from the state she had left it in. In fact, it looked almost worst. Not much had been done to fix it and she wondered who Negan had initially ordered to work on it. Ian could have fixed this. It might have taken some time and careful handling, but he could have easily done it. Before the world had fallen he had been an electrician. Did Negan not know that?

There was a bundle of new wires laying on the ground along with a box of replacement breaker switches. She appreciated the new pieces, but there was no safety equipment to speak of. No lineman's gloves or tools; vital items that would protect Sam from getting electrocuted. She had never worked on an electrical system without the advisement of a professor, nor without being garbed head to toe in safety equipment. She wasn't even granted rubber-soled shoes.

The dead front had already been removed by hers truly. She studied the box, checking for any intrusions that might have happened while the box's interior had been left exposed to the gritty atmosphere of the Sanctuary. When she was sure there wasn't any rust or moisture damage, she set to work removing all the damaged pieces, finishing the job of whomever came before her. She unscrewed breaker switches with a Philips screwdriver and pulled out the torn wires.

Stripping away the damage would be the easy part; putting it back together was where things would get tedious. It was going to take a while to replace all the switches and wires, and that was assuming the replacements provided were even any good.

As she worked, she was all-too aware of Negan behind her. Occasionally she would hear him shift in his seat or clear his throat, but he remained silent beyond that, which she was grateful for. Electrocution would have been a given if he had insisted on making himself a distraction.

The fact that Negan was there eventually slipped from Sam's starved mind as it was finally given the stimulation it craved. All of the Sanctuary fell away as she stripped the box bare. She inwardly remarked on the damage she had done to it. There was more than she remembered, giving evidence to just how panicked she had been in that night. A spark of resentment ignited for the man who had caused her such inner havoc. The soft sound of his breathing gained her acknowledgement and he entered her bubble of concentration again.

Up until that point she had her back facing Negan so she could work and not be distracted, but when she turned around to grab another tool, she realized that he was staring at her. She didn't make eye contact as she lowered herself to her knees and sifted through the tool box. It took effort not to look at him. When he cleared his throat again, she slipped, just for a second, her eyes flickering up and her face twisting into a scowl when she saw what he was doing.

He was staring unabashed at her cleavage, accentuated by the lift and v-cut of her black dress. His eyes stared half-lidded, lazy as his thumb absently scratched at the facial hair running along his jawline, looking almost deep in thought. Sam was incredulous, freezing in mid-movement as she balked at his blatant indiscretion and his lack of shame for it.

At her pause, Negan blinked and his eyes came up. He realized that she had caught him staring and knew from her tight expression that she wasn't flattered. Careless mirth took over his features and a slow smirk crawled across his face.

"Your rack is awesome," he told her.

She scoffed in disgust and snatched up another screwdriver, climbing back on to her feet.

Negan chuckled, thinking her more adorable than rebellious. She was a huge fucking snot with a cold stare, but he found it hard to take her too seriously. It didn't matter how many dirty looks she gave him, he owned her ass and they both knew it. She was his mouse, running around in his maze looking for the piece of cheese at the end. She could turn away so he wouldn't stare, but if he really wanted to see her fucking tits, then he would see her fucking tits.

And it was tempting. She was a C-cup, and a generous one. Negan liked C-cups. He loved all tits, really, but C-cups were the Goldilocks of the tit sizes; not too small where it felt like groping a plank of wood, but not too big where there was constant complaint of backaches and under-boob sweat. The perfect balance of perkiness and fullness.

Tits aside, Samantha was refreshing entertainment. He knew he had stumbled across something special from the moment he saw her, strutting around his fucking house dressed like one of his women. All it took was a glimpse of her turning a corner for him to know that something was fucking askew, and when he caught up to her in one of the workshops, he knew he had found the intruder that they had been chasing like a ghost for weeks. He recognized the black dress and heels, but the legs he didn't. He distinctly remembered never having those shapely beauties wrapped around his waist, and he took careful note of those type of things.

He liked this back and forth they had going, where he would throw something at her and she would throw it right back without skipping a beat. It was stimulating in a way that he hadn't experienced in a long time. She was almost unpredictable, even he had trouble figuring out what she was going to say or do next. He really had to be on his toes around her and it was exciting.

"So how long do you think this is going to take?" he asked, having enough silence. He leaned forward on the back of the chair, rocking on the back legs.

"As long as it needs to," she replied in a flat tone, not turning from her work.

"And how fucking long is that?"

"It depends. Do you want it to work?"

"What kind of stupid ass question is that? Of course I do."

"Then it'll take as long as it needs to."

"Don't get fucking smart with me, Mouse, or you're going straight back into your box."

"Then who will fix the power?"

The front legs of the chair hit the ground. Sam turned her head to see Negan frowning at her.

"You've got some pair of balls on you, you know that? We've been doing this not even a fucking week and already you think you're hot shit."

She turned back towards the power box, not responding.

"Let me make this as clear as fucking crystal for you; you're nothing right now. Fuck it, you're _less_ than nothing. Just because you know your way around a fucking tool box doesn't mean shit if I can't get anything out of it. I don't care if you're the reincarnation of Thomas fucking Edison, if you don't make yourself useful to me, I'm going to put you on my fucking wall. That's where the useless fucks and cunts go in my house."

Again, in lieu of a response, Sam pulled out another breaker switch and tossed it aside, not taking her focus from the box.

"You think I fucking won't?" he asked.

"I know you would, but threatening me will get you nowhere, and I think you know that."

That wasn't her being cocky or calling his bluff. Threats never did effect Sam much, mostly because she never had anything of worth to take away. He could threaten to kill her of course, because while she didn't have much she always had her life to lose, but he made it clear yesterday that killing her would be a waste of potential.

On top of being a ruthless leader, Negan was a recruiter. He could read people well enough to know how to effectively use rewards and punishments, and who would respond better to which. It was how he determined who became a savior and who became a worker in his apocalyptic hierarchy.

If a person could provide something for him beyond free labor, then he would try to buy their loyalty by offering anything he thought would tickle their fancy; material items that couldn't be purchased with points, private living quarters, power over the workers, violence, sex (with the man's very own wives, even). Those individuals were promoted to saviors and Negan's influence would become that much stronger. He would gain another faithful soldier who would carry out his rules without him having to be there.

Sam had to admit that he had an impressive understanding of psychological conditioning and the concept of self-policing. She wondered, not for the first time, if he actually knew what those were and consciously chose to employ them.

"Then what will?" he asked. There was a note of curiosity in his tone that sounded genuine.

She responded with silence as she continued to work, letting the sound of metal tapping against metal fill the lapse.

"How about a little incentive then, hmm? If you fix this thing by lunchtime, I'll have Fat Joey stop zip-tying your hands from now on," he proposed. "How does that sound? No more trying to piss with your hands tied together. Hell, I'll even throw in a free lunch since I'm such a nice fucking guy."

She heard the chair creak as Negan went back to rocking on it.

The incentive wasn't necessary. She was still going to take as long as she needed to. These things took time, and if he didn't want any of the breakers short-circuiting, or risk further damage to the Sanctuary's electrical system as a whole, then he was going to have to be patient.

With careful hands, she removed all the damage parts and prepared to replace them with the new ones. She unbundled the new wires and left them sprawled out on the ground in neat rows until she was ready to connect them. She made sure not to arrange them in any particular order, especially not by color, so that Negan wouldn't pick up on the fact that she was colorblind. It probably wouldn't matter otherwise, but she didn't want him knowing, just for the fact that it was a weakness of hers and she wasn't eager to reveal any of those to him.

She used her ohmmeter to test the new circuits. Her device measured how much electrical resistance there was. If a circuit had zero ohms then the electricity would flow freely and she could replace the old breaker with the new one. For each new circuit she put the leads of the device in place and mentally recorded each reading they gave, setting aside faulty ones until all of them read zero. It was a hassle because most of the new breakers weren't even the correct brand for this particular box, making them useless.

She cut the wires with a pair of cutters so that they were only inches in length, allowing them to fit. It took some careful maneuvering and patience, because handling wires could be like stringing thread through a needle, but this was where Sam's small hands and slim fingers came in handy. After all the new wires were in place, she used an old Cen-Tech voltmeter from the toolbox to test the voltage of each wire, making sure they all worked. She attached the ground bar with one hand and used the lead to test each breaker with the other.

A multimeter would have been more ideal because it was a more modern device for electrical work, a voltmeter and an ohmmeter rolled into one, but it didn't seem like the workshop had one. It was just as well, though. Sometimes it was nice to go back to the basics, enjoy the throwback, like choosing to listen to an old vinyl instead of an iPhone.

For the most part the replacements worked and there weren't any complications. She had it put back together and fixed before her deadline. Negan smiled big, his tongue pressing against his teeth in glee as she switched on all the breakers and the main power came buzzing back to life.

"Now this is what I'm fucking talking about!" he beamed as he stood from his chair.

Sam put the dead front back in place with an electric drill. Negan had a look of childish glee on his face, showing off all his teeth and making the corners of his eyes crinkle. He motioned with a swipe of his arm for Sam to follow him, grabbing his baseball bat.

"Come on, let's go get some fucking grub. I'm starving!"

He bound her hands with a ziptie again, this time only for show. She bent down to pick up her satchel, but a whistle and a noise of disapproval from Negan had her reluctantly leaving it behind. The trip to the cafeteria lacked people to gawk and stare because it was lunchtime and most were in the cafeteria by now. Once they reached the cafeteria the attention on her would increase tenfold. Negan marched them forward with her in the lead, fully aware of this.

Again, he could have easily avoided this by having a lunch sent to her cell, sparing her the scrutiny, but he didn't, and she expected nothing less. He used the flat top of his baseball bat to nudged her whenever she lagged in step. She could feel the barded wire snagging on the material of her dress every time it pressed into the small of her back.

There were people lingering outside the cafeteria doors talking idly to each other, but as soon as they saw Negan coming they dropped. He pushed the doors open with a flourish, using his bat like a judge's gavel to demand the undivided attention of everyone inside. The talking died down at the first impact as heads turned.

It was easy to tell the saviors in the crowd apart from the workers because of the clear difference in class. The saviors stood proud and arrogant with their status, in clean clothes and with good hygiene. They exerted their power in the serving line by taking cuts and among the tables by forcing workers from their seats so the saviors could group together and laugh as if there wasn't a care outside of their compound. The workers took the abuse; the long, unforgiving hours of difficult work for little reward causing them to sink into a quiet degeneracy. They were the ashen faces among the dominating denizen of the Sanctuary, and they were little more than bona fide human livestock.

Negan waited until the cafeteria fell silent. His dark eyes swept slowly, calculatingly, over the room. Sam stood behind him closer to the doors with her bound hands hanging in front of her. She tried not to make eye contact with anybody and hoped that she would go unnoticed in the all-consuming reach of Negan's shadow. Nobody even dared to cough as they waited for their leader to speak.

Once he knew that all eyes were on him, he spoke.

"Let me start by saying that I hope y'all are enjoying this fine meal prepared for you today." He put a gloved hand against his chest as a gesture of sincerity. "I think it goes without saying that you deserve it after how batshit crazy things have been around the Sanctuary lately, and an apology from yours truly is probably in order for that. There's been a lot of speculation and no straight answers about what happened, and what's being done about it, but I'm here to finally put your minds at ease."

He began to pace, his bat tapping against the concrete ground with each step as if it were a walking cane.

"In case you haven't heard by now, there's been a shortage in our inventory numbers. Nothing major, nothing you need to be worried about, I assure you," he insisted before taking a pause, his eyes dancing around the room again, "but we have rules here, don't we? Rules that each and every one of you are expected to follow to a fucking tee. Rules by which this whole operation depend on in order for us to build back up what this _fucking horrible_ calamity has torn down. You earn what you take. Nothing more, nothing less. There is no stealing, there is no lying, there is no dishonesty of any kind while I'm in charge.

From the moment you step inside the Sanctuary you know the rules, and fortunately I'd say most of you follow them. But I think we all know what happens to those sneaky motherfuckers who think they can help themselves without giving so much as a fucking crumb in return." He held up his baseball bat and pointed at the deadly barbs, smiling wickedly. "They answer to Lucille, and Lucille doesn't forgive liars. No siree bob, she doesn't. The only thing she forgives are the stains their fucking grey splatter leaves on her beautiful floor."

Behind him, Sam looked at the crowd as they listened to Negan's oration. He spoke with a dramatic presentation worthy of a Shakespearean soliloquy.

"Is that harsh?" His tone was light with mock inquiry before he pointed his bat, his expression hardening. "You fucking bet it is. I don't make up these rules for shits and giggles because I like being the ball-busting boss man. There's a point to it all."

Pausing to let his words sink in, Negan's expression softened until the lines around his mouth weren't as pronounced, showcasing the aggression boiling just under the surface. He took in a breath, his eyes blinking slowly, before letting it out and pacing the room again. Sam could tell that the people have heard this all before, or some variation of it.

"Now, a few of you may have noticed a curious little betty wandering the halls lately. Dark hair, pretty blue peepers and an attitude that stinks worse than a shitter tank on a hot summer's day. Well, long story short, she isn't one of us. She may play the part, a fucking amazing performance, but she's the sneakiest motherfucker I have ever caught trying to steal from me, pre and post global shit storm."

Negan turned and reached for Sam with a stern "com'ere", wrapping a hand around her bicep and pulling her to his side. She tried to pull away, but the fingers curled around her arm tightened almost to the point of pain in warning.

"This, is Samantha," he announced, holding up her arm as if he was trying to dangle her in the air for all to see. "Some of you might recognize her and some of you might not, but I'm sure as hell y'all recognize what she's wearing. _She's_ our little thief."

Nobody was surprised by the revelation, already guessing who she was just by the fact that she was with Negan, but there was still whispers that rippled through the crowd, as if the confirmation from their leader about Sam's identity was what kept them from openly talking about her.

Negan smirked at this, his eyebrows raising up towards his hairline. "I know, right? I couldn't fucking believe it myself. _This_ is the master thief who breached our perimeter and managed to outsmart every one of my saviors? Fucking in-sane, man. But I shit you not, people. This is definitely her. Caught her fucking red-handed myself."

He released her arm and began circling her like a shark in one smooth, fluid motion, staring her down as he stripped her for all of the Sanctuary to see.

"Samantha has stolen from us, lied to us. She has taken advantage of our good will and hawked a nasty loogie right in our faces for good fucking measure. That's grounds for an automatic trial by Lucille. No judge, no jury - just the fierce hand of the executioner. Nobody has ever pulled the shit that this bitch has pulled and lived to fucking gloat about it, so why the fuck should she!"

There were murmurs of agreement through the crowd, mostly from saviors. Sam could see them nodding theirs and crossing theirs arms. They craved retribution. One of them even shouted out, telling him that they should "string the bitch up", drawing more shouts of agreement.

He let it go on for a few moments. He smirked and nodded his head at their calls, then raised his hand.

"However," he held up a finger, silencing them. His eyes scanned the room again as he let his theatrics fuel the tension. "I'm going to let her live."

There were murmurs from the workers while the saviors kept quiet, knowing that any protest wouldn't be wise. Some stared in disbelief while others shook their heads and mumbled.

"I know, fucking bullshit, right? But since Samantha hasn't caused any permanent damage, I think this is a perfect opportunity to show you all my more forgiving side, because while I can be a downright mean fucker sometimes, I believe everyone gets a second chance. Don't worry, she'll still get her punishment, I fucking guarantee you that, ladies and gentleman," he promised.

He leaned in closer to Sam then, his chin hovering just above her shoulder as he spoke with a deeper baritone into her ear.

"Let's just see if we can domesticate her a little first - bring her around to our way of doing things. The Saviors' way."

He let out a chuckle and pulled out of her space before patting her roughly on the back, making her stumble forward a step.

"Now, moving on. Sammie here has delivered us from darkness, isn't that fucking fantastic?" he smiled, "but since she was the one to break the power in the first damn place, I think we'll hold the applause. The emergency curfew of seven o'clock is over and the usual curfew of ten o'clock will be reinstated tonight. As you were."

And just like that he dismissed the crowd. They turned their heads back to their trays and picked up their conversations like it was business as usual. Negan swung his bat up on to his shoulder and walked forward with a spring in his step. He motioned for Sam to follow and she did, padding barefoot after him as he made a beeline for an empty table at the very center of the room.

He snapped his fingers and pointed to one of the chairs.

"Sit down and don't fucking move," he instructed, waiting until she did before striding off towards the kitchen. She waited until he disappeared behind the swinging doors before looking around.

She was suddenly back in elementary school, when she used to frustrate her teachers until they were red in the face and sent her to the classroom next door so they could get five minutes of peace. The students in the neighboring class would stare at her as she sat in an empty desk, wondering what she had done to get sequestered. It happened often enough, before she entered middle school and detention became a thing, but it always made her feel awkward and singled out.

There was the whispering again, and the stares. Sam curled into herself as she rested her bound hands on the table top, her shoulders drawn up to her ears and her hair blanketing her face. She waited, blocking out the deafening hum of words spoken about her, for Negan to return, but he was taking his time. Gradually, her head dipped further between her arms in an effort to be invisible until it almost touched the table. It wasn't until she heard someone sit down in the chair across from hers that she peaked out through her bangs.

She expected to see Negan, but was surprised to find Ian instead.

"Hey, play bunny," he smiled, wiggling his eyebrows. "How goes it up in your ivory tower?"

"Swimmingly," she replied out of habit. Her eyes flickered towards the kitchen, expecting Negan to come swaggering back through any second. "You shouldn't be talking to me."

"Why not?"

"If Negan finds out that we're acquaintances, he might think you knew and punish you for not reporting me."

"Oh, don't worry about that," he said, waving away the concern. "His men already questioned me, along with anyone else who might've been involved with you. We told them the same thing that they told us when we were first brought in: 'never question someone who ranks higher than you'. It's Sanctuary Living 101. They know that nobody here is ballsy enough to test the pecking order by not giving Negan's wives whatever ridiculous thing they want. Nobody's going to risk showing up on Negan's radar because of something stupid like that. If a woman walks up to you wearing a black dress or skimpy outfit, asking for a spark plug or a blowtorch, you just assume Negan is into some really kinky stuff and give it to them."

Sam didn't bring up the fact that she suspected he knew early on that she wasn't really a wife. Now wasn't the time to get into that, especially with so many potential eavesdroppers around. She was just relieved that Ian wouldn't be punished for her mess. Negan wasn't going to harm her, but she knew he wouldn't hesitate with Ian; a dime of dozen worker who could easily be replaced.

"Did Negan order you to fix the power?" she asked.

"Yep," he nodded, drumming his hands against the table. He seemed hyper today, more hyper than usual. She wondered why.

"Why didn't you?"

"I figured it might give you the opportunity to show off. You know, show Negan that you can be useful so he doesn't melt your face or murder you with a baseball bat. Pretending to not know how to fix the power really dealt a blow to my reputation around here, so I think I deserve a title better than 'acquaintance', don't you think?"

"What should I call you then?"

"How about a friend?" His tone was hopeful as he looked at her with something akin to puppy eyes.

She frowned. Sam never had a friend before. The closest she ever got was her cousins' dog, who liked her better than anyone, but most would say pets didn't count. She didn't mesh well with other people. Her personality and mannerisms kept her from relating to others on a general level and she had accepted a long time ago that being alone was probably for the best.

"Why would you want to be my friend?" she asked.

Her honest confusion must have shown on her face because she saw a flash of pity flint across Ian's face. His smile dipped for just a second.

"Why _wouldn't_ I want to be your friend?" he countered. "After what happened, I'm pretty sure everybody in the Sanctuary wants to be your friend. Well, the workers, at least."

"What?"

"In case nobody's clued you in, you've become pretty popular around here, Miss Priss," he winked at her.

"What do you mean?"

Ian opened his mouth, but a tall shadow fell over the table. They turned their heads to see that Negan had returned, both hands holding trays. He stared down at Ian with an annoyed look, making the younger man drop his eyes to his hands in submission.

"Beat it limpdick," he said gruffly, jerking his head to the side, "this is my lunch date."

Ian was out of his seat and retreating from the table before Negan could finish speaking. He kept his head down as he went, trying not to challenge the alpha while Negan watched him go. To Sam's surprise the frown on his face remained, instead of curling into that mean, satisfied smile of his whenever he dominated someone without effort.

He let out a deep-throated huff at the pipsqueak's gall as he placed his and Sam's trays on the table. He sat down across from her and dug straight into his lunch while Sam looked down at hers with a blank look. The meal on the tray looked like a generic school lunch, with a grilled cheese sandwich cut into two triangles, a small helping of canned peaches, tatter tots, a carton of chocolate milk and fresh vegetables. Negan had given them both the deluxe lunch package, complete with the ever expensive, point-wise, helping of vegetables.

She looked around at the tables neighboring theirs, taking note of how so much little the other diners had on their trays. Negan glanced up from his food and frowned when he saw her just sitting there.

"What are you fucking waiting for - fucking parsley? Eat your damn food."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked.

"Doing what?" he replied around a mouthful of peaches as he chewed ferociously.

"You know what."

He glanced up to see the frown on her face and let out a sigh, putting his spork down and reaching for his napkin. "I'm just giving you a little taste of how easy things can be if you would just let them."

"You mean how easy they would be if I worked for you."

"Tomayto, tomahto," he replied, flippant. He picked up a baby carrot and bit into it. The sound of it crunching under his teeth cut through all the other noises in the cafeteria. "Like you said, threatening you isn't going to get me anywhere and I figured you catch more flies with honey than vinegar, right?"

"I'm not an insect."

"You sure? Because you sure are bugging me."

He laughed as his own joke, slamming his palm down on the table and drawing the attention of everybody in the cafeteria. They turned their heads and stared, some even flinched. His carefree laughter seemed to disturbed the diners more than reassured them that he was in a good mood. Sam supposed that the man's distinguished chortle could very well be a herald for pain for the people who were used to seeing him turn violent on a dime.

She, however, was more annoyed than afraid. Her nose curled up in frustration. She leaned forward, keeping her voice low so that their conversation stayed between them. That was the only way she could get away with snapping at Negan; if no one was around to witness it. He would tolerate it because it amused him, but she knew he would pull rank if her opinionated speech caused him to lose even more face.

"If you could just stop patronizing me for _one second_ -"

Negan held up his hand as he stuffed another peach slice into his mouth. "Okay, okay, calm your tits. I was trying to lighten the fucking mood, sheesh."

He waited until he finished chewing and wiped his mouth with his napkin before continuing.

"I'm being totally serious when I say that I think having you here would be a great fit. You made me look like a jackass, but I'm willing to let all that go because you're smart. Intelligence is not a fucking thing to be wasted, especially not in this world. Smart people are fucking gems to me. They're awesome finds and it doesn't happen often. I'd give my left nut for a worker half as sharp as you."

Sam was skeptic. "And why would you value that so much?"

"Because intelligence fuels progression, Mouse, and that's what I'm aiming for here; _progression_. I might not be the hardest dick in the orgy, but I know that any rise of any empire ever was built on the back of smart motherfuckers."

"I'm positive that any empire ever was built on the back of slaves; not philosophers."

"Isn't any poor, starving fucker who can string a coherent sentence together considered a philosopher? Wasn't Diogenes a fucking hobo?"

That was not the best example to prove his case since Diogenes lived in poverty completely of his own volition, but knowing that it was rhetoric, Sam looked down at her tray, finally picking up her spork. She was tired of talking to him and wanted to eat her lunch in silence, but he pushed his argument.

"The 'slaves', as you call them in this little scenario - which I _do not_ appreciate what you're implying about me, by the way - do the manual crap, yeah, but what's the point when there's no vision behind it? What's the point of anything? Without a vision you just have a bunch of mindless pricks trying to hump a doorknob. We're no better than the dead-o's like that. Any asshole can learn how to grow crops or shoot a gun, but it takes a lot of fucking time and resources to teach someone something of true, unique value, and even then there's no guarantee that any of it will even stick, because at the end of the day, you can't fix stupid." He pointed his spork at her. "Take my fucking word on that, Mouse. I know what I'm talking about."

"Obviously."

"Scientists and inventors," he declared, "if you want your operation to go anywhere, those are the people you have to have on your side."

"Is that what you would call this place?" She backtracked. "An empire?"

"Fuck yeah. What would you call it?"

"Despotism."

He sighed again. "Jesus, you're so fucking negative. I'm disappointed that you're not seeing the bigger picture here, Mouse."

"I do see your 'bigger picture'," she fired back, "and I can think of ten people off the top of my head who have done it before you with much better results - twenty, if I concentrate."

"This isn't about being fucking original, it's about survival."

"I know that. I just don't understand why you have to put so much exuberance behind it."

Negan looked up from his food, incredulous. "Is _that_ what you're fucking taking issue with here? Not that I'm - according to you - Hitler Junior, but that I put _flare_ behind it? That I'm Hitler Junior with a charming disposition? Goddamn, kick a guy in the balls for trying to put a little showmanship into his work. Fuck."

"The world is twisted enough without someone like you cracking penis jokes as they beat people's heads in with a baseball bat," she argued.

He shrugged his shoulders in clear disagreement as he went back to his food. Silence filled the air between them as they ate their lunches. Sam picked up a peach slice and put it in her mouth. It tasted so sweet against her tongue, she almost had to spit it out with how strong it was. It was a jarring contrast from what she was usually fed. It felt cool going down her throat when she finally managed to swallow.

Maybe Negan was right in some way, she thought as she poked at another peach slice. Maybe she didn't really care about the things he did (because even though she felt sympathy for the workers, she wasn't emotional attached to any of them), it was just _how_ he did them that rubbed her the wrong way. She found it...inappropriate, which sounded ridiculous, because what was really appropriate anymore? But it wasn't inappropriate like putting your elbows on the dinner table or talking during a movie. It was the kind of inappropriate that made your skin scrawl and tickled your gag reflex.

"In any case, if you knew anything about history, then you would know that these methods never work in the long-term," she felt the need to say. "Your 'bigger picture' has been like many others' before, and none of them have lasted. "

"Why? Because democracy and power to the people always triumphs?" Negan snorted.

"No. Because people _really_ hate being told what to do, and eventually someone is going to decide to do something about it besides complain. Those methods work better during a crisis when people feel helpless and need direction from someone who seems like they know what they're doing, but once the crisis is over, people aren't as keen serving under absolute power."

"Is that someone you, Mouse?"

"I don't have issues with authority. If things were different, I wouldn't have a problem being under someone's leadership if it meant I could live in a place as secure as the Sanctuary."

"They could've been different, if you had just knocked on our front door like any other sane, rational fucker would have. But the ship hasn't sailed yet. Things can still be different," Negan smiled. "I told you, you can have a wicked setup here if you work for me. You're clever and I like that. I like that a lot."

"So you've said."

"You know, most women would recognize the compliment just given to them and say Thank You. If this is the reception I get for calling you smart, then I'm scared to see what would happen if I called you a nasty bitch or hateful cunt. Although I'm sure you're probably used to that."

"I don't like false flattery."

"You don't believe me when I say I think you're smart?"

"I don't believe you when you say you _like_ that I'm smart," she clarified, despite her better judgment.

"Oh really?" he replied tersely.

She could hear the offense in his tone and see the way his eyes hardened despite the smirk on his face. He thought she was calling him a liar. In actuality, she saw his compliment as misguidance, which was a distinction that would have been enough to pacify herself, but wasn't any better in the eyes of someone like Negan.

"It's not personal," she explained, though she really didn't want to. She hated talking about this. "Nobody is truly impressed with a smart person."

His brow furrowed. "How do you figure?"

She shook her head. "They just aren't."

Nobody likes having to admit to themselves that someone is better than them in some way. People may compliment her, say she's smart, but in the back of their minds, they're thinking: 'not as smart as me, I bet'. So they go on being impressed, seeing her intelligence as a neat party trick until they realize they really aren't as smart. Then suddenly she becomes the bitch who nitpicks and thinks she's better than everybody else, and the fact that she could recite the periodic table from memory and complete a thousand piece puzzle in half an hour without looking at the box just wasn't as charming anymore.

Jealousy and resentment set in and they live to see her fail. They would harass her, talk behind her back and purposely exclude her from things but still cheat off of her in class.

"Intelligence is a burden," she found herself saying. "It doesn't guarantee success in life, but people have higher expectations regardless. I'm expected to be the top performer in everything, whether its my area of expertise or just some random subject, and if I'm not, I lose my value. Smart people are more aware of the existential significance in things, and the lack thereof. Everything is moribund because nothing really means anything and we know it. You have to find a way to filter it otherwise you risk becoming a nihilist, which makes it difficult to see the point. Given how the world is now, 'the point' is what keeps the gun out of your mouth and your finger off the trigger."

Negan frowned, his fork hanging forgotten between his fingers.

"Well that's fucking depressing, and wrong. I don't have a habit of saying shit I don't mean just to tickle someone's balls, and I'm not a petty fucker who can't handle playing second fiddle to someone better than me if they really are. If someone is smarter than me, then they're smarter than me. Fucking case closed. I accept it and move on. Moreover, I let them fucking _use_ it because I _can't_. I can't convince you that I'm being completely fucking serious here?"

Sam collected her trash on to her tray and stood up from the table. She stepped into Negan's space. He had been leaning forward with his elbows on the tabletop while eating his lunch, but once she approached, he sat up straight again with a cool, collected look on his face, sensing a challenge. She braced her bound hands against the table and leaned in, using her standing position to tower over him like he had done to her so many times. Her eyes met his in a hard stare as she spoke just loud enough for the both of them to hear.

"I won't be convinced that you're truly impressed until you can sit there and watch as I pick apart your overinflated ego, piece by conceited piece, and still give me a smile by the end of it."

That was the only way; to acknowledge someone's strengths through your shortcomings. Not even the most humble of men could suppress resentment after being so thoroughly put down, because everybody wanted to believe that there was something good about them, that they were special in some way, but Samantha would shatter that illusion, and for no other reason than just because she could.

She held her gaze with Negan, the tension between them palpable as the rest of the cafeteria fell away. This was the first time she had gone on the offensive since he had lured her into the Sanctuary's basement, the first time she had actively fought back against him since being imprisoned. There would be hell to pay for it at some point, but not right then, because instead of getting mad, Negan stared at her without saying a word. There was amusement in his eyes as they danced half-lidded back and forth between hers.

Refusing to move an inch from her abrasive stance, Sam's heart thudded loudly in her chest as she waited. He sucked on his teeth, deciding how he was going to respond.

"Yep," he eventually said, his voice just above a whisper. He smirked, leaning in. "I am so going to put a baby in you one day."

Sam let out a sound of disgust as she reared back, stepping away the table. She glared as Negan laughed at her. Nervous looks from the diners were sent their way, but they didn't linger once the tension was defused. She was left standing there awkwardly with dejection. His laughter trailed off and he let out a satisfied sigh, standing up.

"Alright, I think you've gotten your fifteen minutes of fame. Let's get you back to your suite before all this attention goes to your head."

After replacing their trays, Negan grabbed his baseball bat and led Sam out of the cafeteria. The hallway wasn't an improvement over the cafeteria, but at least there was the cessation of voices so drained of life that it was causing her secondhand depression. She preferred Negan's overzealous presence over that of the workers any day. At least with him it didn't feel like staring at a goblin with eyes that haven't clouded over yet.

As he brought her back to the cells, she thought about what he had said. Not necessarily about what he had said, but rather why he had.

Through the course of their conversation he had gotten more authentic, becoming more genuine with his opinions and not being so crass, but the comment about the baby had been a hard left turn. It was abrupt and almost, somehow, out of character - or rather, perhaps in better terms, out of context.

He had used his humor to deflate the tension, and from that Sam realized, quite possibly, that he had been uncomfortable with it. Listening to someone self-deprecate themselves usually breeds awkwardness for the listener, and apparently Negan was no exception. Or perhaps she had taken the conversation in a direction he hadn't expected and instead of reacting as "leader of the saviors", he went with reflex and reacted as "Negan" with vulgar humor as a defense mechanism.

Either way, she felt like he had slipped somehow, even though she couldn't pinpoint where exactly. It was a small chink, a revelation that she possibly had the ability to make him squirm in his seat, just like he did with her. Was it something she could use? She wasn't sure, but she stored it away regardless for later analyzing.

When they finally reached the secluded hallway where her little room was, she walked over to her door and waited for Negan to open it for her.

"Do I get my reward?" she asked as he pulled the door open, leaning on it.

Confusion passed over the man's seasoned features before he remembered the other part of their bargain. He smiled. "I'm a man of my word, Mouse. No more binding your hands."

"Good."

Without preamble, Sam tented her bound wrists so that the ziptie became taut and brought her arms down in a swift move around her middle that snapped the ziptie where the connections were. The sound of snapping plastic echoed through the hall.

After the broken tie slipped from her wrists and on to the ground, Sam let her freed hands hang at her sides as she looked up at Negan. He was staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face, his mouth pressed into a thin line.

On the one hand, it had been risky revealing to Negan that she knew how to break zipties, because then he might use something harder to get out of, like handcuffs (which were indeed harder, but not impossible). But on the other hand it showed that even though she could get out of her binds, she hadn't, and it might incite some trust between them. It was her fail safe, a test to see if he truly was a man of his word. One of two things could happen. He either would get mad or he would laugh it off. It was an experiment, done at the risk of worsening her situation. What did Negan value more. His pride or his word?

Sam didn't really care otherwise, part of her just wanted to be a jerk.

When he didn't react, she walked into her cell, passing the man as he held the door open. She could feel his gaze on her back as she went, but he didn't move, even though she half expected him to bury his hand in her hair and drag her back out. She walked over to the wall and lowered herself to the ground, pulling her legs so that they were tucked underneath her. Her hands found her lap and she waited for him to close her door.

She watched his shadow dance across the floor as he finally moved, coming to stand in the doorway looking down on her.

"You know," he said in soft tone, "some of the workers really admire what you did here."

She didn't reply or look up. She rubbed at her wrist where the ziptie chaffed them.

"They think of you as some kind of rebel or modern day Joan of Arc, here to fight the unjust system and liberate them."

She wanted to scoff. That was what Ian must have been talking about. They were going to be sorely disappointed.

"We'll have to fix that."

With those ominous parting words, Negan shut her door, leaving her in darkness with the sliver of space under her door where she could still see his boots. Lingering for a few seconds, they turned and left. She waited until she could no longer hear his footfalls before craning her head back against the wall. She closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.

She sat in silence for a short while until Meat Loaf's "I'd do anything for love" began to play, drowning out all thought.

* * *

 **AN: Much like last chapter this one was pretty chatty, but hopefully next chapter will be more exciting, since we can't expect Sam to stay put where she is for too long.**

 **Just like in real life I believe conversations determine what kind of relationship you're going to have with someone and I like any eventual romance to feel warranted and natural. I'm a firm believer in proper character development, and keeping canon characters in-character is SUPER important to me, which is why my stories tend to be slow burns. I've found that that's the only way to ingrain an original character into the source material without them feeling shoehorned in.**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	8. Breaking Point

**AN: I'm so happy that this story is starting to catch on here on. It caught on right off the bat (pun not intended) on AO3, which I figured might be the case considering that there seems to be more activity there for Negan readers, but I'm glad to have a following here as well. Thanks so much you guys for the support! I really appreciate every bit of it.**

 **Recently Re-edited: (6/9/19)**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own the Walking Dead.**

* * *

 _Breaking Point, or, "the fall is hard but the landing is harder."_

~O~

Samantha suffered a fitful sleep that night. She was plagued with nightmares that had her waking up every hour, bringing her back to her dark cell and the full soundtrack to Guys and Dolls, where the voice of Marlon Brando and the demons of her subconscious made for a hellish concoction.

She woke up in a cold sweat that clung to her tacky skin, gasping for breath. The acidic burn of bile crept up the back of her throat, but she swallowed hard against it despite her cotton dry mouth. The remnants of her latest nightmare still lingered vividly in her mind's eye as her body worked to reorient itself. With each passing second the images became less tangible, as dreams do, but as she pulled herself up into a sitting position with her back resting against the wall, she couldn't help recalling as she buried her fingers in her dirty hair, pulling harshly at the roots.

She had been running through the forest, on a night that was unnaturally dark (as you do), with no moon or stars to give light to the path ahead. She ran full sprint through the trees, bare footed as she dodged low hanging branches and protruding tree roots. There had been just enough light to give the winter-bared limbs a ghoulish silhouette, making them look like emaciated hands reaching out for her as she ran past. Her heart pounding could be heard as she fled from the chorus of two-note whistles that echoed off the trees.

It had been her mind's way of processing the previous days events and she did not appreciate the symbolism behind the endless stretch of forest and the stalking whistles. To be anymore obvious of heralding Negan's draining presence on her body and mind, it would have to have the man himself depicted, waving his arms like a circus clown with a neon sign above his head that read 'I own your soul!'.

His hand would have to reach out, extending towards her at an impossible length, as if made of something malleable like clay or rubber rather than human flesh. The leather of his black jacket would squeal in protest at the stretch before his fingers wrapped around her throat, squeezing the life out of her with his eyes gaping like pinwheels with sick satisfaction and malice.

But dreams were more subtle than that. It was always about representation and double meanings.

Fortunately, after each nightmare Sam was able to lull back into an uneasy slumber within just a couple of minutes. She was more exhausted than she had been in days prior, and she was becoming more adjusted to her cell; not even the harsh floor could keep her from falling asleep now.

It was early morning when she woke up for the final time, only not because of torturous reels spliced by her own subconscious. She was being watched; she could feel it.

Her eyes drifted open as the fine hair on the back of her neck raised. She was laying in the fetal position with her arms wrapped around herself and her back facing the door. Her eyes fell on the back wall, where the painted brick was now illuminated with yellow light, signifying that her cell door was wide open. She didn't allow herself to feel excited or suspicious by this because of the tall shadow that stretched the length of the doorway. Her cell was open, but someone was standing there, leaning against the door jamb, watching her sleep.

His shadow could have been mistaken for a posh gentleman's; all height and sharp angles, leaning on the baseball bat that looked almost like a cane. As she came into full consciousness a foreign smell so powerful invaded her space, a contradicting mixture of bitter and saccharine. It made the inside of her nose burn and her head hurt, like huffing a sharpie.

Sam laid still, not letting on that she was awake as she listened to her guest drink from his mug. She could picture him, sipping so casually on a luxury from the old world that she had assumed no longer existed, along with Red Bull and glutton-free pastries; things long-since looted in the first wave or perishables the new world couldn't sustain.

"You know," Negan's voice drawled lazily, not fooled by her act, "I've been thinking a lot about what you said yesterday, and everything we talked about."

Her eyes danced back and forth over the shadow, trying to deduce his mood.

"Almost couldn't get my fuck on with my wives last night because you had me so preoccupied. You've gotta know how damn frustrating that is," he said, before there was a contemplative pause for a second thought, "or maybe you don't."

Sam heard him shift, inhaling before clearing his throat.

"Yeah, you probably don't."

All of the man's showboating seemed to be absent. His form was cladded in just a white t-shirt and trousers. He was calm and at ease, putting Sam on edge. She was starting to think that maybe this was another dream when Negan's shadow pushed off the door jamb.

"Time to start the day."

He disappeared, taking that intense smell of coffee with him, and Dwight took his place. He didn't take up nearly as much atmosphere as Negan did, so little in fact that it was laughable how small the scarred man was. Sam pushed down the desire to say as much out loud as he reached down and grabbed her. He followed his boss' orders to a tee despite his obvious loathing for the man. She let him manhandle her without protest. Her hands remained free, but he kept a firm grip on her forearm.

Negan watched as he waited for them to catch up. He allowed Dwight and Sam to pass him so that Sam was being marched forward. They walked in silence until the small woman finally gathered the energy to speak up.

"Where are we going?" she rasped.

Negan disregarded her question as he voiced his own.

"I've been on this earth for almost fifty years, and do you know what I've learned?"

"Nothing?"

He let out a sarcastic laugh while shoving her forward, making her stumble. As she righted her footing, she caught the mean side glare that Dwight was giving her. Frustration wrinkled his scarred face. She knew that if he had things his way, Sam would have submitted to Negan long ago and he wouldn't be playing chaperone whenever she needed to be escorted somewhere other than the bathroom. She sneered back at him.

"No. I've learned that a little humility builds character."

"And you think I'm just radiate pride?" she asked, looking forward again.

"You radiate something, mouse, but I ain't sure its pride."

"Where are we going?" she asked again.

"You'll see."

Turning down a hallway that led out of the main building, Fat Joey stood by the doors with Negan's leather jacket, holding it out dutifully like a loyal dog presenting its master with his morning newspaper.

Negan handed his mug to the savior and grabbed his jacket, shrugging it on to his lean shoulders in a smooth, practiced motion before grabbing Lucille and pushing the latch on the door. The early morning air was cold, nipping at exposed skin. Goosebumps erupted along Sam's arms and legs. She was grossly undressed. Her only advantage was that early morning chills had nothing on Alaskan winters and she was more adjusted to cold weather than most. She shifted from foot to foot using the heals to stave off the numbing in her toes.

They stepped out into the chorus of undead groans and rattling chainlink. The sparse saviors out on morning watch looked their way with blank expressions and loaded assault rifles in their hands. Negan walked with purpose towards an empty section of the yard. There was a rusted pole with a long chain piled next to it.

The large shackle attached to the end of the chain made Sam falter in her steps. Dwight pushed on her shoulder, forcing her forward. Negan's seasoned face was void of emotion as he watched her. Their eyes locked before Negan raised his hand, gesturing to Dwight with two fingers and pointing at the chain.

"Get her hooked up, Dee."

Sam didn't struggle as Dwight picked up the chain and kneeled down next to her legs, attaching the shackle her ankle. The bare skin of her right ankle screamed at the unnatural sensation of freezing metal enclosing around fragile bone. Dwight reached into his pocket and pulled out a tool to twist the screw pin into place. He slipped it into the latch and the shackle snapped close with a click that could've been a gunshot with how loud it echoed through Sam's ears.

"We used to have one with a padlock," Negan spoke, nodding towards the shackle as Dwight twisted it, "but we had to scrounge up this old ass one just for you, mouse. Not risking you getting your hands on something you can pick the lock with." He pointed at his temple, winking, "lucky for us, I'm a fast leaner, too."

The prospect of being chained up like an animal threatened to set off something primal inside of her. A panic akin to the kind that drove coyotes to bite off their own foot when caught in a trap, licked at the edges of Samantha's rationality and calm disposition.

Her eyes never left Negan's as she stared hard at him with a look that said both _'don't do this'_ and ' _I hate you'_.

Dwight straightened up and gave the chain a good yank to make sure that it would hold before nodding at Negan. The Sanctuary leader jerked his head in the direction of the doors and the two men turned away. As soon as his eyes weren't on her anymore, Sam lunged, grabbing the chain that bound her and pulling desperately at the end attached to the pole. When it didn't budge, she let out a cry of rage and threw the chain back on the ground.

"Do you think that tethering me up like a dog will change anything!?" she shouted at Negan's retreating back.

Negan stopped and turned ostentatiously on his heel to look back at her. "Probably not, but this isn't really about you, is it? I'm going to put you out here every fucking day until we're all on the same page about just how insignificant you are. I am not going to have an uprising on my hands just because some bitch decided to crawl inside a fucking vent."

"You vile, horrible man!" she screamed in a last ditch effort to scathe him.

"Sticks and stones, mouse. Sticks and stones."

Sam watched the Sanctuary doors close behind him and despaired.

For the next few days, a new routine took shape. Every morning her handlers would take her out of her cell and chain her up in the Sanctuary yard. It didn't matter what the weather was like, rain or shine, at the crack of dawn Sam was pulled out into the yard. She wasn't made to do anything while she was out there. Once she was secured to her chain, Sam was left completely to her own devices, which didn't vary much from what they were inside of her cell.

Being outside was both a relief and an irritant. A relief because it was a change of scenery with the privilege of a little more mobility and stimulation, but an irritant largely because of the weather and the smell of rotting corpses. The weather brought different intervals of discomfort for her throughout the day. The mornings were still cold, and noticeably getting colder, and without any protection the sun would beat down on her in the afternoon, drying her out like a raisin.

She spent most of her day sitting up against her pole, as she had done in her cell, trying to pretend she was anywhere else. Sometimes she would wander the yard, going as far and as wide as her chain would allow. It had a decent reach; not long enough for her to go anywhere interesting, but enough for her to get a little exercise.

Nobody except her handlers ever approached her while she was out there. She imagined that Negan had forbid any contact, for both workers and saviors. There were still the curious stares from the saviors on watch and the gardening crew, but like a leper, Sam stood banished on her own little boat of isolation. She preferred it that way, though. She didn't need anyone flocking around her while she was chained to a pole and unable to walk away.

Sam hated being chained up like some unruly animal. It didn't damper her pride, considering that she didn't have much of an ego, but it dehumanized her.

The chain stripped her of all her rights as a human being, keeping her grounded to a single spot where a brutal man decided she would stay. It followed her wherever she went, dragging behind her in a constant reminder that she wasn't a free woman in any sense of the word. The sound of metal scraping asphalt and loose dirt followed her into her nightmares.

~O~

Sam thought about Stockholm syndrome a lot and the chances that, given enough time, she would develop it for the Saviors.

She had once read a book about it, when her elderly middle school librarian accidentally lent it out to her among the stack of Sherlock Holmes stories he had set aside for her. Once she had run through the library's meager Doyle collection, she read the book out of boredom and curiosity.

Stockholm was a condition where hostages sympathize with their captors. The first recognized case was from an incident during a six-day bank siege in Stockholm, Sweden. It was a finicky sort of phenomenon, one which had many questioning its legitimacy as a mental affliction. It was a contested illness, she read, much like the controversy surrounding criminal cases involving Multiple Personality disorder. People doubt whether the condition truly has any influence over someone's ability to tell right from wrong or to make rational decisions.

It wasn't hard to see why some would think against it. After all, why do some people grow attached to their captors while others recognized their positions as victims and hate their captors? She had read that shared beliefs could play a factor, which lent itself to the Patty Hearst incident; a woman in the 70's who was kidnapped by a guerilla group only to end up joining them in their cause.

The book had coined the term "infantilization". As hostages/prisoners, victims were stripped of basic human rights like eating, drinking and using the restroom unless given permission. They become dependent on their captor for these simple allowances. Small things like being given a candy bar could have the victim experiencing powerful positive feelings towards their captor which was the standing water for the syndrome. Their perception of the situation would warp, and also their perception of their captor. Rather than being the person who put them in the situation, they became the person who was going to let them live.

It was a survival strategy, like flight or fight - the secret option C, submitting in order to survive.

Sam didn't know where she would fall, but currently she wasn't feeling any warm fuzzies for Negan or his people.

Additionally, there was also Lima Syndrome to take into consideration (if she was truly that desperate for a distraction), but Sam doubted that this would become a ripe case study for that, either.

However, if she were to submit to Stockholm, she wondered when exactly it would happen, because ignorance was bliss and she couldn't imagine anything sweeter at the moment.

~O~

Sometimes Negan would visit her.

At least once a day, but sometimes more.

He would try to talk to her, naturally, but she would rarely respond. She already knew what he wanted, what he would inevitably ask her. It always came back to whether she was ready to give in. He would visit her just to see how far he had managed to bend her that day. Inch by inch, she assured him, but gradually nevertheless.

Much to his crudely expressed chagrin, each encounter ended much in the same way, regardless of whether Sam bothered to answer him.

Her second day on the chain, Sam had found a rusted pipe among a pile of discarded factory parts that lay near her pole. She picked it up and ran her fingers along its discolored surface.

 _'I'm a Savior,'_ she thought, swinging the pipe around childishly as she swayed, _'I'm a savior. I torment other communities and take things that don't belong to me. That's right, that's what I do. I ain't got no sympathy or remorse for the lives that I make more difficult. I blindly follow orders from a madman with a pet baseball bat who swears like it's going out of style. This week me and my boys will visit a community of little old grannies and we'll take all their sowing needles and balls of yarn, then the week after we'll steal crutches from amputees and use them to club puppies to death. I'm a savior. Ain't got no sympathy. Ain't got no remorse. I'll ride the roads of the apocalypse in a beat up army truck, taking things that don't belong to me. What's theirs is half of mine.'_

"What in the hell are you doing now, mouse?"

 _'No, half of his.'_

Sam didn't turn around or stop the almost incoherent game of make-believe in her head to face Negan. He stood somewhere behind her, without a doubt with his baseball bat on his shoulder.

"Pretending to be a Savior," she replied, flippant, still swinging the pipe around.

 _'I've got no worry. I've got no morals. But I have one thing. I've got a disease that's eating me up inside. A disease that makes me less than human. I can feel it rotting my insides like an apple that's browning. My nails are yellowing, my skin is wrinkling like old leather, I smell like roadkill, I hunger for the lives of others and I'm losing my mind. I've had this disease for a while now so I went to the doctor. Do you know what he told me? His prognosis?'_

"Oh yeah?" he mused, sounding interested. She heard him shift his stance with the gravel crunching under his boot. "How are you liking it?"

Sam unceremoniously dropped the pipe, her nose curling up in contempt and responding dryly.

"I'm bored."

It hit the pavement with a loud clatter.

 _'He told me, 'I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Savior, but you're Negan.'_

Negan let out a snort.

 _'You're Negan, and it's terminal.'_

He turned and walked back towards the main building, leaving Sam to meander back over to her pole and lower herself to the ground. She drew her legs up to her chest and buried her face in her knees.

 _'I'm a Savior. I have no sympathy. I have no remorse.'_

~O~

The day when it all became too much came two days later.

Sam was sitting on the lukewarm asphalt against her pole. Thinking and doing nothing of any real interest or purpose, she had her face buried in her knees when she heard the sound of approaching trucks.

They were loud enough to almost drown out the moans of the dead leashed to the fences. The saviors at the front gate moved to let the trucks in, pulling back the chain link fence and gesturing wide with their arms. There were so many that they took up most of the yard, even infringing on Sam's small patch of territory, allowing her to wander within close proximity. She watched with her arms wrapped around herself as Negan's men piled out and began unloading their bounty.

While her new station allowed her to witness a few of these shipments over the past few days, she had never seen one so big before. There was usually only a truck or two; this was a convention.

The double doors of the main building opened with a screech as Negan and a pair of his highest ranking came out, descending the stairs. Sam didn't turn to look at him as he approached, knowing the sound of his boots against gravel by heart now, and neither did he acknowledge her as he passed, nearly skimming her arm. The driver of the truck closest to them stepped out of the cabin and dropped to one knee, ready to give Negan his run report.

Negan held out his arms in a gesture of bemusement, watching his savior climb back to his feet. "You're almost an hour late, Vince. What the fuck were you doing?"

Vince dipped his head in a respectful apology. "We hit a roadblock of dead ones on the way back from the kingdom. It took a while to clear them."

"The kingdom," Negan muttered decisively, shaking his head at the ridiculousness of the play-pretend community. "We lose anybody?"

"No, sir, but Butch had a close call."

"Oh yeah? And where's he?"

"Still in the truck. I told him to take a minute before helping us unload. It was his first close call and he's pretty shaken up."

"Pussy," Negan scoffed before reaching to scratch at his beard, thinking for a moment. "Alright then, you know the drill, boys. Unload, set aside a few things for yourselves then take the rest to the marketplace and we'll call it a fucking day."

Negan walked back towards the doors where Dwight stood waiting for him. His eyes flickered up at Sam as he passed by her again, a silent warning of 'watch yourself' as he kicked her chain out of his way. He did nothing to stop her from milling about as his men worked the trucks so she assumed he didn't care enough to chase her off. Negan climbed back up on to the entrance platform to talk to Dwight. Indirectly given permission, she continued to watch.

Negan's men carry box after box of supplies out of the trucks. She wondered, not for the first time, just how many communities Negan had under his all-consuming thumb. She had to assume that he held power over every collection of survivors large enough to be a group over several Virginia counties. It didn't bode thinking about, because Sam was here and "here" was the eye of the storm where Negan's control was the strongest but his people the safest, and where they didn't have to worry about a weekly visit from their local savior outpost.

Sam kept close but out of the way. She stood with her arms wrapped around herself near the truck closest to her pole. It was a white box truck. It could've been the same one she had stowed away in. Wouldn't that be a neat circle?

Somehow, over the noise, she heard a thud. It was out of place, making it stand out from the usual cacophony of the yard. She looked to her right, pinpointing the sound originating from the front of the truck, in the cabin.

Curious, she walked towards it, eyeing the passenger side door as her chain dragged on the ground behind her. Another thud sounded out, rattling the window, making Sam jump and drop her arms at her sides. The door was too high up for her to see what was inside, but she could see the shadow of movement just faintly.

She glanced back towards Negan and his men. Negan stood leaning over the yellow railing of the platform, engrossed in his conversation with Dwight. His eyes didn't even flicker in her direction like they usually did when he sought her out to make sure she wasn't up to something. She looked back at the truck, biting her bottom lip. Her hand itched to reach out and grab the door handle, but not even she lacked that much self-preservation.

Her feet remained cemented to the ground, though, well within a dangerous proximity of the cabin. The thuds on the door grew louder and shook the cabin harder to the point where she considered calling out to someone.

Before she could, the passenger door suddenly flew open and a man fell out.

He landed heavy on to the gravel, hitting face first. He hadn't done anything to break his fall. His arms didn't come up to protect his face; he just let his front take the full brunt. Startled, Sam took a step back, staring wide-eyed at the savior laying motionless in front of her.

Her heart pounded as she watched the savior move. His limbs curled in towards his body as he pushed himself up on all fours. She could see the wrongness in his movements, how they were too sluggish and uncoordinated for someone who simply took an accidental tumble. A broken moan came from the man and Sam stared in horror as he lifted his head with an unnatural jerk of his neck, his eyes coming up to look at hers, revealing milky white pupils.

Its jaw dropped open and it let out another groan before stumbling to its feet, somehow managing to stand upright despite the lack of equilibrium in its brain-dead system. Its hand reached out towards her, fingers searching for living flesh. Sam gasped as she finally moved. She stepped backwards, her hand reaching for a blade on her hip that wasn't there. The vulnerability of her attire flared anew when she realized she was defenseless.

In a burst of surprising speed, the savior lunged at her and she moved backwards again, but her feet tangled in her chain and her world was throw off its axis as she pitched backwards. Dust flew up as she landed hard on the gravel. Tiny rocks bit into her elbows and the exposed portion of her back. Her eyes stayed locked on the goblin as it limped towards her. It lunged again, landing on top of Sam before she could scramble out of the way.

The weight of the goblin knocked the air from her lungs and caused the back of her head to hit the ground, stunning her long enough to allow the goblin to crawl up the length of her body. Realizing that she was literally staring death in the face, her arms shot up to protect herself. She pushed hard against the goblin's collarbone, just barely stopping it from sinking its teeth into her cheek.

It kept at its assault, pushing against her arms in blind desperation to feed. Sam turned her head away from its snapping jaws and finally screamed.

The sounds of her distress rang out into the yard, causing heads to look up and the groans of the other goblins to raise in volume at the anticipation of scenting blood on the wind.

Sam and the savior rolled around on the gravel, kicking up dust as the woman fought hard to keep the undead away from her flesh. Even through the adrenaline, her arms began to weaken and she could feel the distance between them closing. Tears streamed down her face as she opened her eyes and looked directly into the goblin's, seeing her death just a hair length away.

Just as she felt that the goblin would push past her last defense, it was torn off of her. It collapsed on to its side with a bone-shattering impact, thrown bodily off of Sam by Negan's brutal kick.

With her arms still raised in front of her face, Sam watched the leader step over her to finish dispatching the goblin. Dwight came up behind her, grabbing beneath her arms and dragging her back. Negan raised Lucille high above his head before bringing her down on the goblin's skull, cracking it open with a sickening noise. He repeated the motion several times with labored grunts until the savior's head was nothing but a puddle.

Sam scrambled away from Dwight, stumbling back to her pole with clumsy steps. She collapsed on to it and gripped it tight, leaning her entire weight on it as she fought against hyperventilating. Her heart pounded and her whole body shook with each ragged breath she managed to suck into her heavy lungs.

"The fuck!" she heard Negan yell behind her. "What the fuck!"

"Negan, I swear to God I didn't know!" Vince, the head of the run, began to plead, knowing that his position made this incident liable on him. "He told me he hadn't been bit!"

"And you fucking believed him? You know you're supposed to check that shit! Always check!"

"I know, I'm sorry."

"Oh, you're sorry? You're fucking sorry? You better be sorry! You brought one of those infected bastards into my Sanctuary! Do you have any idea how long its been since that's happened? Not since I first took this place. There goes my ticket into Guinness, asshole! Better tell somebody to put that 'last day since incident' board back to fucking zero!"

"I-" the savior looked horrified. His eyes followed Lucille as Negan waved her about in his rage, expecting to feel the bite of barbwire at any moment.

"And not only did you tarnish my perfect fucking record, but your dumbass almost got someone bit. This isn't day one of fucking preschool, Vince. You're one of my highest officers, you know what is expected of you. Who the fuck do you think you are, disregarding my rules and putting one of my people at risk? You think my mouse appreciates having a fresh corpse thrown in her face?"

Negan was furious, moreso than he had been in a while. Encountering and handling infected outside the Sanctuary gates was one thing, mishaps were expected because of the unpredictability of the new world, but inside the Sanctuary he had a reputation to uphold, people to protect and provide for. There couldn't be gate breaches and infected saviors being allowed back inside. If a savior was bit, unless it was on a spot that could be amputated, he or she was put down. It was something that had to be done, every savior knew that.

And they also knew to _fucking check_ someone for bites if they had a close call. Negan couldn't count the number of times during the first months of the outbreak that he had almost lost a chunk of himself because his traveling-companion-of-the-week was a selfish prick who decided to hide their terminal wound from him, leaving him to wake up to their reanimated corpse gnawing on his boot after they turned during the night. Fucking rude.

"But I guess it's okay since you're sorry about it," he scoffed, looking down at the pitiful picture his savior painted at his feet.

He looked around at the crowd that had gathered. The air was tense and the men and few women were waiting to see what would happen next. Negan reached up to rub at his chin, taking in a breath as his eyes trailed across the yard and landed on Samantha's small, shivering form. With a curse, his hand dropped from his face.

"Get the fuck out of here," he told Vince, "and so help me, don't let me see your ass ugly mug on another run or else Lucille's going to take a fucking bite out of it."

Vince stuttered out a noise of gratitude as he raised to his feet and pushed through the crowd. Negan readjusted his grip on Lucille, clearing his throat loudly before spitting at the ground near the remains of his savior. He couldn't recall much about him, but from the looks of it he was one of the younger ones.

"What a goddamn shame," he muttered, before gesturing with his arm. "Alright, enough standing around, people. These trucks aren't going to unload them damn selves."

He shifted his weight to his other leg as he turned to walk across the yard. A pang ran through his knee and up his thigh as he remembered the less-than-advisory maneuver he had done to get to Sam when she was being attacked. When he heard her scream bloody murder, it was act first and think later that had him catapulting himself over the railing like he was some Olympic pole vaulter, and not a former gym teacher pushing fifty. It was a large drop on a set of joints that hadn't been prepared for it. He was lucky he hadn't broken his fucking hip.

Negan stopped a couple of feet away from where Sam still kneeled, the skirt of her dirt-streaked dress bellowing out around her and her hands clutching the pole. Her shoulders hefted with what could've been sobs, but she was silent. He watched her, taking in her shrunken form and how ghostly white her knuckles were from gripping the metal so hard. She hadn't been bitten. There wasn't any fresh blood on her; just the near black shit that oozed out of the dead ones. Infected blood, rotted beyond recognition as soon as the heart stopped beating.

"What do you want done with her?" Dwight asked, coming to stand next to him.

"Get her unhooked," he told him, "we're taking her back to her cell."

Sam gave no resistance while Dwight unlocked her from her chain, but it took some effort to pry her off the pole. She must have been in shock. Perhaps that was the closest call that Samantha has had in a while, or possibly ever - if the crafty minx had always been this clever. Negan felt angry again at the whole thing, how close they had come to this shit storm between them becoming completely fucking moot. Nothing mattered if you were dead.

Once the young woman was tucked safely back in her cell, Negan dismissed Dwight with a nod. He stepped in her doorway, drumming his long fingers on the handle of Lucille. There wasn't anything that needed to be said, but the air felt too empty to leave on silence.

"For what it's worth, it was never my intention for you get to hurt."

There was sincerity in his voice. He lingered for a few more moments before he let out a frustrated sigh and closed her door.

Sam shut down after that. In the days following her brush with death, she had entered a state of forlorn, borderline catatonia.

She had never been very responsive to begin with, but she had still put in the effort that it took to stay alive. She would eat the food given to her, drink their water and comply to the degree that would keep those privileges from being taken away, all the while keeping the fight, but now the will was gone. Meals and cups of water went untouched, sitting in the corner of her room where they had been left. Sam would do nothing but lay on her side with her arms wrapped around herself.

When her watchers came to take her out for bathroom breaks or to be chained in the yard, they were met with her back. She would no longer stand and hold her hands out, allowing them to be bound. They would snap at her, curse at her, demanding that she get up, but it was like she wasn't there anymore. Emotionally, mentally, she wasn't really. The saviors would handle her roughly, but she still wouldn't move. Joey would be nicer, tentatively reaching out to grab her arm, only to drop it when it remained limp. Sam had become an empty husk, a broken marionette with its strings cut, laying motionless on the ground.

This went on for days, but Negan never came down to the cells to deal with it.

It was Dwight who finally came, when Sam's lack of response forced Joey to call for back up ("it's like she's dead," he whispered into his radio), and the scarred savior finally let out his frustration on her. He stood in her doorway for a good half hour, yelling at her. He screamed at her for her foolishness, calling her stupid, accusing her of being a martyr. There was a long tirade of how pointless her suffering was, how it didn't mean a damn thing. Negan would win this battle of wills. He would always win.

He screamed at her until his voice was raw, but it failed to have any impact on Sam. Her eyes didn't even blink as she stared at the back wall, not processing a single word. When he saw that she still wasn't going to move, he let out an enraged shout, picking up her untouched dinner tray and throwing it down the hallway, narrowly missing Fat Joey who turned his back and flinched as a glob of powered mashed potatoes came sailing his way. Peas and carrot bits flew and the tray hit the floor with a loud clatter.

Dwight's heavy footfalls stomped back down the hall, leaving Fat Joey to close Sam's cell door. The portly savior brushed chunks of potato from the back of his shirt, mumbling quietly under his breath. He looked at the food decorating the floor and sighed. The door to Sam's cell stayed open as he took a broom from the maintenance closet down the hall and started sweeping the mess. When he was finished, he dutifully put the broom back.

With one hand on the door he looked in on the young woman. His brows knitted together with sympathy. He stood there a moment, thinking, before he walked over to his chair, but he didn't sit down. Sam blinked out of her trance when she heard him fumbling with something. Her eyes trailed over his massive shadow as he returned to her doorway.

"I'm _really_ not supposed to do this, but here."

She heard him set something on the ground before closing the door again.

The shape and shine of aluminum against the light under the door was unmistakable. Her body ached when she moved to sit up. The soda can felt smooth and cool under her fingers as she picked it up and examined it the best she could in the dark. Sam was always more inclined towards lemon lime, but the promise of something sweet and bubbly and familiar against her tongue was too tempting.

She pulled the tab and the can opened with a pop and a hiss. The grape flavoring was intense and the carbonation burned the inside of her mouth like liquor, making her eyes water, but that didn't stop her from throwing back her head and downing half the can. It bubbled all the way down her throat and settled like air in her empty stomach.

Sam let out a sigh through her nose as she leaned back against the wall with the soda can cradled in her lap. Her tongue darted out to wet her dry lips as she closed her eyes. Memories of teeth snapping inches from her face flashed inside her head, along with the echoes of adrenaline in her limbs and the chest-tightening sensation of nearly dying.

She had never gotten so close to being bitten before. Traveling light and solo made it easy to avoid dangers and Sam had been lucky to never have had to face a goblin head on. She had killed many infected, but they had been stealth kills, done by creeping up behind and embedding a knife in their skulls before they even had a chance to scent her, or kills done at a distance with a handgun. She never had to physically brawl with one before.

The savior had only been dead minutes so it still had the muscle to make it dangerous. If Negan hadn't kicked it off, then she would surely be dead, and it wasn't a happy feeling knowing that the man now had that to hold over her head, on top of everything else. It truly had been the straw that broke the camel's back. Sam didn't feel _anything_ now. She felt hollow.

Negan had won, though he probably didn't realize it yet. He had broken her.

Her fingers tapped idly against the can as she stared vacantly at the door of her cell. She listened through the music playing overhead to the noises outside, the occasional sniff and soft turning of a page; Joey reading one of his comics, passing the time until his shift was over.

Sam sipped at her drink until it was finished before raising the can to her mouth and biting into it.

If Negan or Dwight had chosen to enter her cell at that moment, they would have thought she had finally gone insane. Carefully, quietly, so the crinkling of the can wouldn't draw attention, Sam gnawed at the thin aluminum. It was uncomfortable, making her teeth ache, but she bit through the taste of dirty pennies, both from the metal and the blood from her gums, until it tore. Digging her fingers in, she peeled the can apart. She worked at it until she was left with a square piece of aluminum.

While she had been working, Joey's shift ended and Sims had taken his place. Sam waited for the moment when the older savior would inevitable nod off, rolling the piece of aluminum through her fingers. When the sound of his breathing finally evened out, she got on to her knees and crawled over to the doorknob. Being gentle not to tear the thin aluminum, she worked her makeshift lock pick between the lock's catch and the door hinge, just like using a credit card to slip the catch out of place.

Feeling it give, Sam gingerly climbed to her feet and opened the door. Smoothing out the skirt of her filthy dress, she gave Sims a blank look as he slumbered on the chair next to her cell. She closed the door behind her and walked down the hall, her bare feet padding faintly, leaving behind the sounds of Teen Beach Movie and Sims' snores.

Through her melancholy, she brought the remnants of the soda can with her so Joey wouldn't be blamed for her escape. Maybe it really was Stockholm that compelled her, or maybe Joey was just a decent person, but she didn't want him to get in trouble.

It was only mid-day, but the halls near the cells were empty. They didn't get much foot traffic on a typical day, but there had to be at least a few saviors. Perhaps Negan didn't think Sam warranted more than one guard anymore. Maybe he thought she had no more moves to make, and until half an hour ago, she didn't.

She had gotten out of her cell, but what came next was still a mystery.

She came to a juncture in the hall that veered off into two paths. The left led to a door at the end and out into the yard while the right led deeper into the Sanctuary. Going left, she came to the door and pushed on the bar, revealing an overcast sky and wet pavement. Humidity hung in the air like a wet blanket, immediately making her palms damp.

Her escape was, more or less, right in front of her, but for some reason, Sam found herself stalling. The joints in her knees locked as she stared out into the empty yard.

It would be foolish to believe that there was a conceivable limit to just how much pain and suffering the human mind could experience without falling into reversible insanity. On the contrary, humans were prodigiously resilient when it came to the abject horrors of the world, post and pre death rising.

Like many things that seemed to defy logic and nature, stories of amazing feats preformed by people who, for all intents and purposes, should be dead, overcoming and even thriving - had always fascinated Samantha.

Vesna Vulovic, ripped from an airplane and surviving a thirty-three thousand foot drop (one for the record books). John Colter, an American trapper in 1808, chased by Blackfeet natives in a literal manhunt (Hugh Glass eat your heart out). Aron Ralston (and his arm), caught not-so figuratively between a rock and a hard place. Titanic passengers in the freezing waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. Jews in death camps. Survivors fighting off hordes of reanimated corpses.

The human soul, or the instinctual drive to survive (for those who don't believe in the former), in a good many ways, had the potential to bring about the impossible.

But when the human spirit was nigh nil, the event of death could be just as spectacular. It was the line that separated the fighters still alive in this world and the ones who opted out. (Mind, opted out in the sense that they chose the peace of death over enduring the hardships of life - not the instances where one was bitten and chose permanent stillness in death over something a little less-so.)

Samantha was not at an optimal time in her life to handle thinking about "what next?". She was drained, physically and emotionally. If confronted by an extreme situation like the ones she had read about in books, she wouldn't be up to snuff, not in the realm that would have her removing her limbs to get herself free. How was she supposed to go back to the way things were before finding the Sanctuary when she couldn't even bring herself to take a single step outside?

Had she become domesticated and not even realize it? Had her lapse in vacant compliance actually been a surrender, blindsiding her with the reality that she was no longer an outdoor cat but a declawed indoor? Where had the fight gone? Tucked away in one of the many pockets of Negan's zipper-riddled, tacky, Bad Company leather jacket?

There was the possibility she had left it in the yard, with the remains of that savior and the tracks in the gravel where she had struggled, but if it had gone then, she wouldn't be here. She would have let that goblin make a meal of her. It had to have vanished sometime between the yard and her return to her cell to sulk in misery.

She stared out over the wet pavement for a few moments before turning away. The first few steps were slow and hesitant and half clumsy, as if warring between going outside and staying in. Her resolve wasn't much better. Her head was in disarray, turmoil. She wanted to leave the Sanctuary, to be "free" (whatever that meant), but she knew there was nothing out there for her. No chance of surviving the rest of the day.

And even if she did, it was too late for that anyways.

She turned her back on her only means of escape, and made her way back down the hall.

Making a stop in the room that she knew held the stereo system for the music, Sam walked back to the hallway with an armful of CD's and turned right.

~O~

Sims jolted awake when someone delivered a kick to the side of his boot. He sat up in his chair with an aborted snore and blinked his eyes. Carter, the youngest of the cell guards, looked down at him. He had one hand resting on the shoulder of the chair while the other balanced a food tray; feeding time for the prisoner.

"Wake up, old man," he said, partly amused but mostly apathetic. "You're shift is over."

Sims let out a guttural yawn as he looked down at his wristwatch. "Already? Damn."

"Yeah, time really flies when you're dead asleep, doesn't it? You really gotta knock that off. If Dwight ever catches you, you can say goodbye to your points."

The older man stifled another yawn as he waved the other off. He hefted himself out of the uncomfortable chair that did murder on his back and let out a groan. He stepped aside to allow Carter to place the food tray on the chair and handed him the ring of keys.

"You need any help?" he asked, but only to be polite.

He hoped, and knew, that Carter wouldn't take him up on the offer. He liked to show off his natural ability to wrangle the prisoners, a talent he had discovered during his first assignment in redirect duty. He was stronger and more able-bodied than both Sims and Fat Joey, and because of that he was the only one allowed to take Sam out of her cell.

"Nah," he shook his head, "I got her. She's barely moved in days."

"I'll leave it to you then."

They exchanged goodbyes before Sims made his way down the hall on his bad knee, but he didn't make it more than five feet before he heard the opening of the cell door.

"What the- hey!"

Sims turned, wincing at the pain in his kneecap. "Hrm?"

Carter stood next to the open door with his arms out. "Sims, where's the girl?"

"What are you talking about?"

"She's not here!"

Sims limped back over to the cell, pushing the younger man out of the way and peering inside. "What?"

Both saviors felt their stomachs drop when they realized Samantha was - not just gone, but _gone_. MIA. Nowhere to be found.

Sims looked at Carter, his aged face draining of its color.

"She should be here," he breathed, panicked.

"Oh fuck."

"I don't know when- how she could've-"

"Goddammit Sims!" Carter cursed as he reached for the radio on his belt.

On the other side of the Sanctuary and three floors up, Dwight sat in a ragged, lazyboy chair, rocking slowly while nursing a bottle of beer. His room was dark except for the small portable television that ran an old VHS episode of The Partridge Family. The picture was fuzzy and the colors were faded out to almost a sepia tone, but it was just clear enough to make out Shirley Jones in her heyday dancing to music mingled with white noise.

The condensation from his bottle slipped down its long neck and over his bony fingers. His eyes stared out through his stringy hair watching the archaic set, moving only to rock the chair up and down and occasionally take a drink from his bottle. He stayed like that until the monotony of his downtime spent wallowing in self-pity and hate for everything was interrupted by his radio, his name coming in through the static.

Blinking out of his far-off stare, he picked up the remote resting on his thigh and put the television on mute before reaching over the side of his chair for his radio.

"This is Dee," he grunted into the speaker.

 _"Dee, this is Carter down in the cells. The girl got out somehow and we don't know where she is."_

Dwight let out a sigh, leaning forward in his chair and switching off the television. "You lost Negan's toy?"

 _"I don't know what happened, man. We were doing a shift change and when I opened the cell to give her her food, she wasn't there."_

"Did Sims fall asleep on the job again?"

 _"I...I don't know. He was awake when I-"_

"Don't cover for his mistake unless you want it to be your ass on the chopping block."

 _"She was just gone, Dee."_

Dwight exhaled through his nose, momentarily taking his finger off the talk button before saying:

"Alright, just forget about it. You and Sims check the surrounding hallways for her while I circle the outside. We've got fifteen minutes before I have to radio this in to Negan, so I suggest you move fast. If we can find her and get her back in her cell before reporting in, then maybe Negan will go easy on the old man."

 _"Roger that. Thanks, Dee."_

"Don't thank me."

Dwight released the button and put his radio on his belt, standing up from his chair and reaching to grab his crossbow from where he kept it hanging on the wall. He made it outside the main building in record time, going no faster than a brisk walk, and began patrolling the outside, looking for any signs of their escaped prisoner. The feed from his radio was silent so he knew that she hadn't tried to escape the compound yet. The gate guards would have seen her coming and reported it.

There was a fine mist coming down now, the lightest rainfall they had all week. It matted into his hair and clothes, dampening his already shitty mood. He didn't know why he didn't just immediately report to Negan with this and let the three stooges bumble around the building looking for the girl. She was crafty, but she wasn't a fucking wizard. The only way she could have gotten out of her cell was if those morons weren't doing their jobs. She may have stopped resisting them, but that wasn't an excuse to let their guard down.

Part of him hoped that Sam had escaped, that she had escaped the compound and that they would find her corpse somewhere in a ditch so that they could finally be done with this. If Dwight couldn't skirt the rules and make it out untouched, then neither could she.

A loud crunch underneath his boot caused him to halt. He pulled his boot back and found glass-like pieces scattered all along the gravel. Dwight bent down and picked up a sliver, churning it over in his hand to see the costume store cowboy from the Village People printed on the opposite side. CD's, he realized.

He looked up, reaching for his radio.

"Carter, this is Dee. Scrap what I said, this can't wait. I need you to report to Negan right now. She's on the roof."

* * *

 **AN: Alright, I hope you guy enjoyed the new chapter. Sorry the delay was so long. Make sure to let me know what you guys think!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	9. Don't Shatter the Porcelain

**AN: Thanks for the reviews last chapter! I really appreciate the support.** **I mentioned in the first chapter that this story would be a cross between the show and the comics. With Dwight, I'm choosing to follow his comic book origin so he'll have his crossbow. And since I'm following Dwight's comic origins, the same will go for Sherry.**

 **Recently Re-edited: (6/9/19)**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead.**

* * *

 _Don't shatter the porcelain, "it might be worth something someday"._

~O~

Samantha stood on the ledge of the Sanctuary's roof, her toes peeking over the edge at the straight plummet below.

The rain had lessened, but the chill remained and the concrete beneath her bare feet was ice cold. From this far up there was a strong breeze that blew her black hair making it weightless as it followed the motion of the wind like two partners in dance. Her dress fluttered around her thighs and brushed gently against the tops of her knees. The wind whistled shrill in her ear as she breathed slow and deep, her heart pounding, feeling in sync with the world around her, where she stood solitary above it all.

She hoped that the longer she stood on the ledge, facing her chosen demise, the easier it would be to step off, the more tempting it would be to pursue the taste of freedom in permanent oblivion - but she was scared.

She didn't want to die, and her mind wasn't so warped that it would twist the reality of what she was about to do into a fevered dream, a whimsical fantasy she could chase off the edge. There was no shielding herself. She could turn her eyes away, but she would have to face the full weight of her decision until her fragile bones met the pavement below.

In her quiet lamentation, she thought back to the epic Roland willow that grew in the backyard of her father's childhood home, where she spent her summers seeking refuge under the weeping branches. They caged her in their heart, the cave forged by their long branches with a shady core that stayed cool even on the hottest days. The tree kept her hidden and the monsters at bay.

Now grown and so far away, an entire country between them, Sam thought back to it. She always imagined that it was the sight where everything she had lost since her childhood had washed up, woven into the grooves of the tree trunk and becoming part of the leaves that protected her. She imagined herself sitting underneath in its cove, leaning back against her literal family tree with a book in her lap. She would close her eyes and hear the rustling of the willow tree in the wind. And among it she dared to hear a faint bark of an old friend, youthful in his call for her to come play, the soft feel of chocolate brown fur underneath her hand, and she allowed the sensations to follow her back on to the ledge.

Her arms hung at her sides while her fingers curled and uncurled in anticipation. Her stomach flipped as vertigo threatened her balance, but she fought against it, adamant that she was going to jump off the roof, not fall off like an idiot. Everything felt so precarious at this height. The tall main building seemed to almost curve inward from her vantage point. Even the slightest increase in the breeze would have her over, she felt. Lighter than air on the edge, heavier than a rock off of it.

The shrill cry of the metal door to the roof stairway behind her pierced inorganically through the surreal air, revealing a greasy blonde with a scarred face. Without a word or command, he had his crossbow loaded and raised in her direction, but when she looked over her shoulder at him with that resolute look in her eye, his mean expression faltered when he realized that she wasn't up here looking to somehow escape the compound.

"Fuck," he cursed, lowering his weapon and reaching for the radio on his belt. "Someone get Carson up here, we've got a code white."

An affirmative from an unknown person buzzed through the radio before a moment of static and Negan's voice sounded out, his voice gruff and not at all happy.

"Dwight, I don't care what you have to do, you keep her right the fuck where she is until I get up there."

The radio feed went dead. The blonde made no move from where he stood by the door. Despite Negan's orders, Sam knew that Dwight wouldn't stop her if she jumped. He wouldn't make a mad dash for the ledge and pull her away, he wouldn't try to talk her down. He would only stand there and watch. If he was just an ounce crueler, she might even think he was capable of pushing her.

Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing, she thought as her and Dwight stared at each other. This was harder than she had anticipated, maybe a helping hand was needed.

Before she could voice the idea, the door swung open again, hard enough to hit the back wall with a resonating bang as Negan and several savior came piling out. Sam turned her head back forward and looked down at the empty space just a footstep away, willing herself to go now, ' _this is your last chance_ ', but she still couldn't make her feet move. The leader of the saviors saw her on the ledge and cursed.

He leaned in towards his top man and said something too low for Samantha to hear, the wind snatching the words away. Dwight responded with a nod and raised a hand to grab Lucille as Negan handed her off to him. She heard his boots scuff against the loose gravel of the rooftop as he approached her with easy strides. He chuckled in a deep tone that the wind tossed it up in the air, making it echo out.

"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed in near hysterical excitement and disbelief. "You've got to be fucking kidding me. I can't believe you almost got away again!"

"If it makes you feel better, it wasn't so much as underestimating me as it was overestimating your men," she told him, still looking over the edge.

"Come on, mouse, don't you think this is a bit of an overreaction?"

She shook her head, "I can't stay here, living in a broom closet or chained to a pole."

"Hey, you brought that on yourself, girl," he said, still walking towards her with his exaggerated swagger. "All of this shit could have been avoided if you had just played by the rules like everyone else. Don't act like you've got any fucking justification for what you're trying to do, so get your ass down here before I drag you down."

Negan took another step closer to where she stood with one arm extended, the hand with the white gauze wrapped around his wrist reaching out to either help her or grab her.

"Take one step closer and I'll jump!" she yelled, wiping away the arrogant expression on his face.

There was several feet of distance between them where he stopped, but she was alert in case he decided to charge her; it wouldn't take more than a second for his long legs to close the space. He was starting to realize how serious she was, and that she wasn't just trying to create another scene to make him look like a jackass. He picked up on the fact that while she wasn't in a suicidal state of mind, she was in a desperate one and was seriously considering jumping off the roof.

"Don't do anything stupid, Sam," he warned in a low voice. "I'm not kidding."

She turned completely around then, her back now facing the drop, the wind still blowing her hair and dress, making the scene just a bit more dramatic.

"Neither am I," she replied.

Dark brown locked with pale blue as the two stared each other down, like two cowboys just before high noon, only here a step forward meant a step back and death would come just as quick as a draw. Negan's face was twisted up into that mean, pitbull scowl that he had when all humor and comic relief left him and he wasn't pretending to be the nice guy anymore.

"I really hate it when people do this," he said after several beats of intense silence. "You think you're going to find peace down there? Because I ain't going to have you put down when you come back as one of those dead bastards."

"I'll do a nose dive, then," she bit back, giving him a sneer.

"I'm not fucking joking!" he snapped. "You'll just become another decoration on my fucking wall, Mouse. A motherfucking waste! That's how this will end for you if you don't _get. the fuck. down for there!_ "

Sam looked over her shoulder again, seeing the deep plunge. Vertigo finally hit with a wave of nausea, forcing her head forward again as she reached up with both hands and buried her face in them. There was a shift in gravity that only she seemed to feel and she let out a miserable groan as the lights behind her eyelids spun like a kaleidoscope. When she pulled her hands away, Negan had taken a few steps closer, though inconspicuous he tried to be. The anger was gone and his face had softened.

"Just, come on down from there and talk to me," he told her. "I'll even send the boys back down if it'll make you feel better."

"Do wherever you want with them, I'm not getting down."

"Fine, we'll just talk then," he conceded, raising his hands in easy surrender. "That's alright by me. I've got nothing better to do right now, anyways. We can just stand up here, shoot the shit and enjoy the view."

He stood with his arms held out, a gesture of peace, looking like a vicar garbed in a clergy robe of black leather, opening his arms and offering salvation.

His sudden complacency was surprising, but Sam wasn't stupid. She noticed what he was doing. Every time he spoke, he would pace slowly back and forth, trying to make it look organic while subtly taking a step forward whenever he changed direction. He was inching his way closer to her. She looked down at his boots, glaring. Negan didn't give himself away even as she conveyed with her own unimpressed expression that she knew what he was up to: the second he drew close enough, he was going to grab her.

"Before you throw yourself over and find out whether the Westboro Baptist Church actually knew what they were talking about, or if they really were just batshit, I've gotta know how you did it this time," he said, smiling in a way he knew was disarming. "How did you get out of your cell?"

"This isn't Fort Knox," she replied. "I jimmied the lock."

"I figured that, but fucking _how_? Using what? You got a tiny, lock-shaped prick hiding somewhere underneath that dress?"

"Magic - it doesn't matter how, Negan."

"Of course it fucking matters."

He was closer now, only a few feet away, and more saviors had grouped around the stairway entrance. Among them was the tall figure of Simon and the haggard Doctor Carson with his emergency bag in his hand. They all watched, waiting to spring forward at Negan's command.

Sam looked up over their heads, thinking back to that Roland willow. If she hung her head down, she could pretend the greasy tresses of her hair were the leaves.

This shouldn't be so hard. The thought of death sounded more appealing than living in a closet, but she still couldn't make herself move. The instinct of self-preservation wouldn't allow it. She couldn't suspend her will to live for even a second. She pictured the leaves, tried to put herself there in her mind, but all she could hear was Negan's voice in her head, repeating the phrase that made her doubt the role she was playing here.

 _'it was never my intention for you to get hurt...'_

Wasn't it, though?

Her fight had gone when he had revealed his bluff. Even though she had made a fool of him, Negan never planned to hurt or kill her. He _told_ her that, but she hadn't believed him, not until now. He hadn't sounded sincere in his claims until now. He told her that he meant no harm, but an underline threat had always been there, a _'I won't hurt you unless you make me'_.

From his unwillingness to cause her harm, she had realized that she had a place here, at the Sanctuary, albeit uncertain and strenuous. Before, she hid behind Negan's cruelty, telling herself that this wasn't avoidable because he was uncompromising, when _maybe_ , _perhaps_ , this was really just a childish outburst of not wanting to accept that she was wrong and that her pain was actually of her own volition, like standing in time-out long after your parents say you can leave just to make a point; _"I'll leave when I want to, not because you told me to"_.

How was she supposed to reconcile that? She had never been so confused as she was now and she rather be dead than this far into her head. It was a dangerous place in there.

"I think I'm self-destructing," she heard herself say out loud, sounding small and helpless.

Sam held faith in herself above all else, but if she couldn't trust herself, then what else was there left to do?

"Oh sweetheart," Negan cooed, not unkindly. "If you were self-destructing, you'd know it. This is nowhere near rock bottom. You're just a little confused right now, no big deal. We all get a little mixed up every now and again, there's no shame in it."

She lowered her eyes down from where they were fixated on empty space and looked at Negan. It felt strange to be higher than him for a change - unnatural. The leather of his jacket squealed faintly as he held out his hand again. She stared at it as if it was a bear trap, hidden poorly under a pile of leaves, while her face twisted up with inner turmoil. Negan only looked on softly at her in calm patience, giving her the chance to make a choice.

"What do you want from me?" she asked, her voice just barely a whisper that would have been stolen by the wind if it were any softer.

The calming smile that he had on faltered for a second when he realized that this was the most emotion he had ever seen stoic Sam express. He felt his hackles raise. He needed to get her down now, he was losing her.

"I just want you to work with me," he said sincerely, "that's all I ever wanted."

Close enough for her to reach for him, he held out his hand once more.

"Take my hand, Samantha."

Her confidence wavered and her hand slowly came up towards his-

"Come on, boss, just fucking grab her!" Simon yelled from the stairway door.

Fury went off like a rocket inside him and he looked over his shoulder, conveying with his blistering expression to ' _shut the fuck up_ '.

The balding man's interruption allowed Sam to shake the doubt casted on her and steel her resolve once again. The leader turned back, opening his mouth to speak, to continue coaxing her off the ledge, but stopped, realizing that his chance of talking her down had just been shot to shit.

She stepped back, Negan's eyes widened in panic.

" _Don't-_ "

Her right foot left the safety of the roof and then her left as she titled backwards.

Native Americans were, in general, religious people. Whether that was traditional native beliefs of the earth or the adopted Christianity, they took comfort in the idea of a higher power. Being the black sheep, Sam didn't share this. Though agnostic on principle, she believed less in God and more in quantum.

The inventor in her, the scientist, the observer who condemned the blind follower, always liked the idea of the multiverse, because to her it was more comforting than eternal paradise with halos and downy wings. Different realities with different courses that your life could have taken based on similar choices and similar circumstances, culminating in different outcomes. Infinite outcomes. Anything she could ever want, ever wish to have happen, has happened somewhere out there in infinite space, to a different Samantha, and she took comfort in that. No matter what happened in her reality, in another the dead didn't rise and she became somebody who was worth something.

Here, as she felt herself tip backwards and her stomach lurch, she grasped to her beliefs like any devote believer for one last moment of solace, come what may.

Somewhere, in another reality, she got what wanted and Negan was a fraction of a second too late. His fingertips only skimmed the inside of her wrist and she fell to her death. Her body dropped like a lead ball and she hit the hard pavement with a bone-shattering thud, snapping and splintering almost every bone and rupturing several organs. She died on impact. The last thing her mind comprehended was wind against her skin and seeing the overcast sky. Laying on her back with her broken limbs sprawled out and dress soaked by the puddle of blood pooling beneath her, her blue eyes stared upwards, unblinking, free of the mortal coil in the hands of death.

But in her reality, he wasn't too late. His hand grabbed her wrist in a steel grip that echoed to the other reality in a mocking call.

He lunged forward, grabbing and yanking her back. The momentum had her falling down over top of him, knocking them both to the ground. Negan had the wind knocked out of him with the weight of Sam pushing against his middle, but his grip on her didn't loosen as he moved to sit up. The dark-haired woman was sprawled across his lap, limp and breathing heavy, the skirt of her dress flared between them.

Using his empty hand, he braced it behind him to balance his weight as he shifted to where he was sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him. Once he felt stable enough, he pulled his arm back and reached to grab Sam's other wrist, keeping her in place on his lap.

Panting from anger, he looked down at her with blazing eyes, his chest heaving. She laid prone on his thighs with a blank expression on her face; she was in shock. She didn't react to the tight grip on her wrists, or the intimate proximity of their bodies. She only stared as silence fell over the rooftop.

The anger gradually slipped from his face, the well-defined frown lines that betrayed his aged smoothed out as his breathing evened out again. His eyes danced across her vacant, half-lidded gaze, a sense of awe creeping in the longer they lingered on this impossible woman.

Perched in his lap, a mockingbird who's flight had been cancelled, he was marveled by her.

Her small frame had him easing his grip on her wrists as snapshots of a buried past flashed irrepressibly inside his head. Looking the way she did, always holding herself in a way that he thought of as dainty, she was like one of those eerie China dolls his mother used to collect when he was a boy.

Those porcelain dolls with painted faces and horse hair. His mother collected them almost obsessively, ordering them from the heaps of doll catalogs that she had littering her sewing room, detailing rare collections with featured pictures of the dolls and their fabricated backstories. She would keep them in the powder-white guest room, on shelves too high for him to reach, and treated them lovingly, as if they were living daughters.

(After she had died, the dolls went to him, along with all her other crap like her clothing, jewelry and books, which he ended up either selling or donating. The dolls he kept, though. He hadn't been particularly close to his mother, but he didn't have the heart to toss them out or sell them, so they went into a box that sat inside an old storage locker of his. Fuck all if the damned things were still there today.)

Only once did she ever let him hold one, her favorite one. Even after all these years, he still remembered the model: french bisque, an authentic bebe jumeau, with dark chocolate hair, rosy freckled cheeks and glossy blue eyes, handed down to her from her maternal grandmother (fuck that old bat). He held it almost like a baby, cradling it, feeling both excited by his mother's faith in him and embarrassed as shit at holding something that was meant for girls. She had a name for it, but for the life of him, he couldn't remember what it was.

He had peered down at its fine features and delicate fame, dressed in its pastel frills and a little straw hat that his mother had weaved herself. He remembered taking one of its tiny hands into his own, fingers so small, like little icicles on the underside of a picnic table, and arms delicate like bird bones. He remembered thinking, in his little, destructive six-year old mind, how with just enough pressure between his pointer finger and thumb, the appendage would snap clean off into his palm.

Samantha had the same pale blue eyes as that creepy ass doll and gave off the same sense of physical fragility that kept him from gripping her wrists too hard, not wanting to break the porcelain.

It was her who finally made the first move, shattering the trance. She began to struggle in his lap, trying to roll off and away from him, but he kept his grip.

"C'mere," he growled through gritted teeth, hauling her up as he climbed back on to his feet.

She continued to fight against him even as he pulled her upright. Her expression was a mixture of frustration and pain with her eyes glossing over with unshed tears. Her cheeks glowed a dark pink, and the pallor of her usually earthy tone bared the knowledge of what she had almost done to herself, and the failure and shame in it. Her skin felt ice cold underneath his, almost like death if he couldn't already feel her pulse engraving itself against the heels of his palms.

The shock had warn off and anger flared anew as Negan leaned in closer to Sam. She tried to pull away, but he only spun her around so that her back was against his chest. He tightened his hands around her upper arms, lowering his head until his chin was almost resting on her shoulder.

"You only die when I say you can," he snarled before pushing her towards Dwight. "Put her back in her box."

The scarred savior stepped forward to grab her, his arms outstretched, but Sam used the momentum of the shove to propel herself past him. Everyone on the roof dropped into a defensive stance once more when she made another break for it. She pushed to get to the ledge again, to gain her advantage back. Though not certain she could make herself step off again, she was feeling desperate enough to try.

However, Dwight had quick reflexes and his arm shot out to hook around her waist, causing them both to spin. She let out a cry of frustration as he used his hold to wrestle her to the ground.

The concrete and loose gravel tore at the skin of her bare feet and ankles as she kicked her legs out wildly, bracing them against the roof and pushing up to try to buck her capture off. Dwight was a scrawny man with not much muscle, and with the young woman thrashing around and fighting as if her life depended on it, he could feel her start to slip out from under him. Samantha could feel it too, and her vigor was renewed, but Negan and the others descended on them.

Disembodied hands wrapped around her ankles, pushing them down, and more joined Dwight's up near her shoulders. She screamed at them with rage and hate as she continued her fight. The pressure on her limbs sucked the energy out of her and her struggles weakened, but she had it in her to pitch her own attack when Dwight's hand came to hold her down by her collarbone and his forearm came too close to her face. With what little reach she had, she lunged forward and sank her teeth into the exposed flesh.

The man yelled out as she bit down as hard as she could. He yanked his arm back, but the move caused her teeth to tear skin as he pulled himself free. The salt from his skin and the copper taste of his blood spilled on her tongue, making her want to gag. She spat out a wad of saliva and blood, aiming for the closest person she could.

"Fuck!" Dwight swore, holding his bleeding arm. "She fucking bit me!"

Negan appeared above her, calling Doctor Carson. The gun-shy physician was next to him in an instant, reaching into his medical bag and pulling out a bright, neon blue water bottle with a picture of the Capitol Building printed on the side. He handed it over to his boss, depositing it in his hand and stepping back out of the way.

Crouching down near her head, Negan held the bottle in one hand while the other grabbed Sam's jaw in a brutal grip.

"Hold her still!," he shouted at his men.

He used his teeth to pull open the stopper as his gloved fingers pried open her red-stained mouth. Ignoring her screams and attempts to close her teeth on his fingers, the older man leaned over and shoved the stopper in between her lips.

She gagged and struggled harder when a gush of water spilled into her upturned mouth, hitting the back of her throat and causing her to choke. Her windpipe rejected the liquid through a series of violent coughs, but despite the sounds of her distress, Negan didn't pull back. He only reached down with his free hand and pinched her nose closed, cutting off her air completely and forcing her to swallow more.

He kept at it until the bottle was almost empty, only letting up when Sam was on the verge of choking to death. The longer it went on, the less she struggled. Exhaustion had her limbs becoming still underneath the hands that held them down and she throat burned too badly to cry out.

When the leader of the saviors finally pulled away, ceasing the flow of the bottle, she let out full-bodied coughs that tore out of her abused lungs as they worked to get rid of the excess water. She coughed until she almost passed out from the lack of air and took in a deep breath. As her chest expanded, the rest of her body fell limp.

The saviors holding her down tentatively removed their hands as they stepped away from her motionless form, as if they expected her defeat to be fake and that she would spring up again.

But she only continued to lay on the ground, breathing heavy as she stared up at the grey sky above with a weak, half-lidded expression on her face. The skirt of her black dress flared out at her sides, still damp. Her hair was in clumps, dank and dirty while her skin was streaked with grim. Her toes felt frozen and the loose gravel dug into her partially bare back, but she didn't move to sit up. Acceptance had set in that her attempted suicide had failed.

The figures on the roof stood and waited - for what, she didn't know. Negan made no demands for her to be picked up and placed back into captivity. He was silent with the rest of them, tossing the bottle back to Carson before leaning against the concrete ledge with his fingers rubbing at his eyes.

Sam didn't realize that she was becoming dreary until her vision began to tunnel. It occurred to her that Negan hadn't shoved an entire bottle of water down her throat because he thought she might be a little parched. There had been something in it that was now making her feel sluggish and intoxicated. She tried to lift her head, but even that required more coordination than what she had right now. Accepting this too, she gave up and let her head fall back down.

Her eyes looked upwards again and stayed there until they slipped closed.

~O~

When the parlor doors swung open, the five women cladded in lingerie moved to stand from where they had been lounging on ornate loveseats, but the doors slamming shut again, and the look on their pseudo husband's face when he stalked past them, had the harem sitting back down.

Negan was in a piss poor mood and they knew to make themselves scarce when he was on the warpath.

He stomped through the decorated room and towards his connected office. He disappeared inside without a word of acknowledgement and slammed the door behind him, making the gaudy crystal chandelier hanging overhead rattle. The wives threw glances between themselves but said nothing as they went back to what they had been doing.

As soon as he was inside the privacy of his own space, Negan set Lucille down against the wall and reached up to claw at his scarf. He yanked it off and threw it to the ground before unzipping his jacket. The heavy leather casing was flung across the room as the man vented his fury towards the objects on and around him. A boot connected with the edge of a coffee table and a particularly obnoxious wallhanging was knocked from its perch, making the wives sitting in the next room jump at the loud clatter.

He raged through his office until the tantrum receded enough for him to remember that someone (not him, obviously, but someone) would have to clean up the mess. Pulling his chair out from his desk, he collapsed into it with a sound crossed between a sigh and a growl. He unclenched his hands, his old knuckles aching at the release of pressure. He reached up to rub at his eyes, massaging them before traveling down and palming his chin and the coarse hair that collected along it.

He had been worried about this, ever since Samantha's lack of activity was first reported. It should have been a welcomed sign that she was finally learning to behavior herself. If it were anyone else then it would have been, but with her it only served as a red flag that maybe she was being pushed too far.

A breaking point could mean different things to different people. His workers were the best kind, most preferable, where all it took was a little pressure to break their spirits to a nice point of subordination. They were broken, but not too broken to work for a chance to live another day, even if that day was shitty.

He could tell that Sam had one of those zero-to-a-hundred breaking points, where it was either she was in charge and in control of herself, or she wasn't and he had a suicidal meltdown on his hands. Those were always a pain in the ass.

Sensible fuckers would chose safety over happiness, because nothing mattered if you were dead, but some idiots would rather die than serve someone they didn't want to - because they were fucking idiots. Sam might like to think she was a practical person, but she was more driven by emotion than she realized. She would've never snuck inside the Sanctuary vents if she wasn't.

It was frustrating because he saw so much potential in her, had seen it for himself in those little journals of hers that read like they were written by a mad scientist trying to construct a death ray. There had been sketches in there - blueprints. Crude blueprints, yes, but of things that would make life in this new world better; windmills and water wheels, solar panels, ideas of recon and salvaging DC's metro system, salvaging the Smithsonians for old models of machines for study and reuse, the reintegration of steampower, and even _bee cultivation._

(Christ, he never knew bee wax had so many uses; Sam had written _pages_ on that subject alone. If there was one thing that he had learned from her journals, it was that the woman loved trains and bees.)

Sam had the ideas, and possibly even the vision to see them through, and Negan had the tools and the man power. It was a perfect match. It was goddamn ridiculous that he, despite all of his awe-inspiring charm, couldn't even get her to scoff in his direction. Yes, his treatment of her had been less than stellar, but, not to belabor a point, _she_ was the one who stowed away and stole from him.

A practical person - _bullshit_.

That little girl was such a walking contradiction, he doubted that she even knew the first thing about herself, much less who she was, who she wanted to be, and who she was going to someday become.

Even through the fumes of death and the unholy apocalypse ( _supposedly_ \- he hadn't seen Jesus come down from his cloud yet and join the party like he had promised once upon a time - _book of revelations my left testicle_ \- so he remained skeptic that this was the end to end alls) -

\- even through waves of chaos and madness, Negan could still spot, with eagle-eye precision, a fucking student with their head shoved so far up that they couldn't see where they were going. That was his motherfucking job, ladies and gents, and although he may have been a shitty student himself, a shitty husband, a shitty cars salesman and a shitty person in general - he had been a damn good teacher - a _great_ one.

If he had come about Sam the regular way, finding her on the road and inducting her into the Sanctuary like everyone else, then he would have been all over her. He would've wined and dined her, and she would've been his favorite, but on the night of that storm he knew he had come across something special, something that couldn't, and wouldn't, be wasted by dolling it up and sticking it in the parlor with his other wives to bitch and gossip all day.

With a little direction, Samantha could have it in her to bring about the new world's own industrial revolution.

Or, at the very least, give the Sanctuary an alternative energy source so people could use batteries in their MP3's and huge, monster-dong vibrators like God fucking intended.

Either way, it would be a win for him. He just needed to make sure that she didn't try to fling herself off the roof again, or kill herself some other way, but he was confident that this suicide attempt was just a one-off thing. She had been desperate, beaten down and feeling hopeless, thanks to him. He felt just a tad guilty for backing her so far into the corner that she felt she had to leap from a building just to make it stop. When she woke up again, he would make his case once more, remake his offer and see if he could get her to at least calm the fuck down for a while.

With the rest of his anger finally leaving him, Negan let out a sigh, leaning back in his chair and craning his neck to stare up at the ceiling in thought.

 _'What the fuck was that doll's name?_ ' he wondered, too tired to think further on what had just happened. It was still too fresh, he needed to let it sit before he could process without getting pissed all over again. ' _Martha, Mary? This is going to bug the shit out of me._ '

It started with an "M", he was sure of it. Madeline, Madison?

' _No, wait - it was Marceline_ ,' he remembered. ' _That's what it was. Mother's Marceline, the little southern bee keeper._ '

Kicking his feet up on to his desk, Negan rested his hands across his stomach and closed his eyes.

* * *

 **AN: A neat thing about me is that I actually live in Virginia, and even at one time lived in the actual city of Alexandria. Since probably season 2, I've always wanted to write a story using things like the metro system and downtown DC and the National Mall. The idea of the Smithsonian museums has been an idea for a long time, and while I'm not watching season 9, I know the premiere has the characters in "a" museum. I would have loved that scene if it wasn't so stupid, but I digress.**

 **Anyways, I wanted to remind you guys that this story may exist in a timeline where Rick's group never comes to Virginia. I still haven't decided yet. If you would like to tell me your opinion on whether you want the story to be an AU of the show/comics with no Rick Grimes, or if you want to one day see Sam navigate the events of the show, then feel free to let me know in a review!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	10. Clipped Wings

**AN: Thanks so much for the reviews last chapter! Another "flashback" and this one is a little lengthy. I like to emphasize Sam's willingness to do anything to survive, but I realized that it might make her vehement refusal of Negan's offer sound contradictory. This flashback will shine light on how she can suppress her high sense of self-preservation to be defiant.**

 **Recently Re-edited: (6/10/19)**

* * *

 _Clipped wings, or, "After cancelling her flight, Negan has Sam beat - or does he?"_

~O~

 _~Then~_

From the podium stationed house left, a middle-aged man cleared his throat and spoke into the microphone, projecting his voice over the meager audience seated in the rows.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Gastineau County Regional spelling bee. At this time will the contestants please step on stage and take your seats."

There was a controlled applause from the families as the children made their way on to the stage, single-filed in the order that corresponded with the numbers hanging around their necks, marking them like livestock going to auction.

Among them, somewhere in the middle, closer to the end, was Samantha.

The beefy fifth grader in front of her couldn't follow instructions even after two rehearsals and sat down in the wrong seat - Sam's seat - forcing her to step around him and take his instead, throwing the order off and annoying her.

(Already off to a bad start.)

She fiddled with her number, third row back and now on the end, waiting for the proctor to recite the rules, but first there was a contrived summary of the competition's history and the boasting of accomplishments from the event's coordinator that had her attention drifting. The contestants around her were just as uninterested; legs swinging, hands fiddling with loose strings from shirts, fingers finding noses then finding the bottoms of chairs.

The grade levels ranged from as early as third-grade and as late as fifth, providing a miscellany of backgrounds and races, but little skill, if what Sam had seen of this motley bunch so far was their best.

They had been rowdy off stage, loud and excitable. A girl her age tried to talk to her, but Sam had ignored her, letting her monotonous expression chase her off. She wasn't competitive, but winning this competition meant a prize that appealed to her, so she would rather be left alone to prepare.

The girl didn't want to be her friend, anyways. If there had been anyone else other than Sam, the girl would have went to them instead. She was never anybody's first choice. And even if she was, her uncle wouldn't have approved of her being friendly with the competition. If he thought that she was distracted he would correct her, and it never put either of them in a good mood when he did.

"The students you see up here are all winners," the coordinator claimed. "They have worked very hard to get to where they are today."

Sam rolled her eyes, doubtful.

Traditionally, schools would hold individual spelling bees where the undisputed winner would move up to the next level, but nowadays, some parents thought that third and second place were just as good as first and demanded that their subpar children be allowed to go to regionals as well, making the competitions overcrowded and longer.

It was damaging for the kids, because no matter how high they managed to crawl up, advancing only on technicalities rather than skill, someone better would shred them in a state final, and that someone was usually Samantha. She had a reputation for doing just that and was often treated like the bad guy for it.

When the coordinator finally stepped down, the proctor explained the rules. They had to say their given word before making their attempt, and then repeat the word at the end to signify to the judges that they have finished. If needed, the definition and origin of the word, and an example of the word's use in a sentence, would be provided. Misspelling or failure to follow the rules would result in immediate disqualification and they were to exit the stage.

When he finished, the spelling bee started and the first three contestants became the first three eliminated as they misspelled their words.

As they went down the lineup, moving along like marching ants under a magnifying glass, Sam searched the audience, looking for the tailored sport coat of her uncle's. She found him on the end in white pants and brown loafers, one leg crossed over the other as he stared down at his Blackberry. His dark hair was slicked back and bound in a ponytail at the base of his neck while his copper face was twisted into the usual look of impatience and disdain.

It was a habit of his to overdress for small events like these. Not only because he was vain and materialistic, but also because he knew that Native Americans were rarely wealthy and successful, and he enjoyed the novelty of being one.

When it was finally Sam's turn, she made her way to the microphone where the stage lights shined the brightest. She had to stand on the tips of her toes to adjust the mic. When she lowered it closer to her height, she put her hands behind her back to signify that she was ready.

She wore a dark blue (maybe purple) long sleeve dress patterned with red and/or green sparrows (she couldn't tell - red and green were both a dull lime green in her eyes). Her legs were adorned in a new pair of pristine white tights and little black flats with bows on the buckles while her long, black hair was pushed back by a red or green headband.

She looked small and adorable and that was very much intentional. The more cutesy she looked, the younger people thought she was and the more impressed they were when she did well. She in no way dressed like this typically, and never had clothes this nice bought for her on occasions other than when she needed to be seen and not heard.

Her uncle often used her to gain favor or sympathy from his clients. He built her up as the image of his orphaned niece who he had selflessly taken in and was rising like one of his own. When she was in public situations like this, how she looked and everything she did was staged, and candidness was a serious penalty.

"Your first word is, 'piano'," the proctor announced.

"Piano," she repeated into the microphone. "P-i-a-n-o. Piano."

"That is correct."

There was a light applause, betraying just how many in the audience were there to support her, and despite herself, Sam looked at her uncle. It didn't seem like he had looked up from his phone, not even when her voice came out over the speaker system.

She turned on her heel and returned to her seat - and it was _her_ seat, because the beefy kid had misspelled "serf" as "surf". He had requested the definition and an example, both of which had nothing to do with the watersport.

The competition continued with contestants dropping like flies. Sam's attention drifted throughout, but she was able to focus enough, not having to ask for an example or a definition once. Spelling came easy to her. The letters took shape inside her head, and if the word wasn't phonetic, then breaking it down, side-stepping interchangeable spellings and remembering silent letters wasn't any harder.

"Your word is, 'numeral'."

"Numeral. N-u-m-e-r-a-l,' she spelled. "Numeral."

She had always hated this.

She had started doing competitions with her father and she tolerated them because he liked seeing her compete and she liked seeing how proud it made him, but now that he was gone - the lights, the other children, the long, long hours of rehearsing, just didn't do anything for her anymore.

The only reason she was here was because her uncle was a psychopath, and that wasn't an exaggeration.

Her uncle Edward, the brother who owned the casino, was a diagnosed psychopath.

While Sam herself was known to exhibit psychopathic traits, she wasn't a psychopath. She was fully capable of feeling and expressing emotions and empathy, just not always in the way and on the occasions that others would. She wasn't likely to give condolences for a dead loved one, or give congratulations for a healthy new baby. She found apologizing difficult and she wouldn't sacrifice her personal comfort or ignore her instincts for the sake of social approval. She wasn't especially considerate and she wasn't especially compassionate.

However, she would let a person she wronged express their feelings and wouldn't deny that she was at fault. She would give a white lie if it meant sparing someone's feelings, she would give charity if she was in a position to do so, and she would compromise with someone she didn't agree with, especially if it meant coming to a better solution.

Sam felt guilt, remorse, sympathy and humility - even though getting her to express them outwardly was something completely different. She was desensitized and repressed, but she didn't have any sort of social disorder. Some of her behavior might be likened to someone on the Autistic spectrum, but no one could justifiably considered her behavior as severe.

And despite popular opinion, she wasn't a serial killer in the making. If she found a dead animal that was relatively fresh, she would poke around in its insides out of curiosity, but she wouldn't roam the woods, killing rabbits or squirrels with pocket knives. She wouldn't take inappropriate interest in someone getting hurt or killed. In fact, if someone were to fall down and break their leg with an audible crack, bone protruding and bleeding, nothing would make her vomit faster.

She wasn't a humanitarian, but she knew what was right and she knew what was wrong.

"Your word is, 'persuade'."

"Persuade. P-e-r-s-u-a-d-e. Persuade."

Uncle Edward did not feel anything and rarely bothered to fake it for anyone whom he wasn't trying to extort money from. However, for Samantha, he acknowledged her intelligence just enough to spare them both.

Because of his affliction, he wasn't even above using his children for his own gain (although, fortunately for their misguided faith in their father, an opportunity to do so never came up because neither of them were exceptionally, or even moderately, good at anything). So for Sam that meant there was even less of a chance for a sympathetic ear. If her uncle wanted brownie points, he would get brownie points, even if it meant dragging her around kicking and screaming.

But she already knew all that. He had given away the family dog, who Sam had been particularly attached to, without even blinking, and it had shattered her.

"Your word is, 'authority'."

"Authority. A-u-t-h-o-r-i-t-y. Authority."

Her uncle was making her do spelling bee's again. Exploiting her talent for something as pointless as kudos among the casino-goers and the local community was just another blow he dealt to her.

However, he had told her that if she won, she could have Tama's old bedroom; the one she had vacated after her impromptu shotgun wedding for a small rental in town.

Sam currently occupied the spare room in the unfinished basement of her uncle's lofty house. It was always hot and stuffy down there with the only view being dusty Christmas decorations, which was sad, but she wasn't going to kid herself; her life was sad. Even if the room change put her next to her cousin Payat's room, who had just recently discovered both puberty and Internet porn, her uncle's offer had been too tempting to pass up.

It got lonely down there, sometimes.

"Your word is, 'influence'," the proctor announced.

"Influence. I-n-f-l-u-e-n-c-e. Influence," Sam spelled, confident.

After the judges approved, the proctor announced a break. The families of the disqualified made their way out of the auditorium to pick up their children. Sam's uncle had left with the crowd, most likely to take a call, so she didn't wait. She stood from her chair and walked backstage to find the drinking fountain that she knew was there. The water came out lukewarm and the mouth piece was gross. She wished her uncle would give her a couple of quarters to get a bottle of water from the vending machine, but she knew better than to ask.

Hearing voices, she turned to see a man and a boy appear from behind the curtain. The man searched the area looking uncertain.

"Can we go out this door, you think?" the father asked, checking the exit door to make sure they wouldn't set off an alarm. The boy sniffled in response. He was wearing a number sign like Sam; he had been contestant number six.

The father looked back at him, concerned. "Hey pal, what's the matter?"

"I lost on my first try," he muttered, almost in tears.

"That's okay," the father comforted him. "I'm still proud of you for trying. There'll be another competition soon so don't beat yourself up over it, okay?"

Number six didn't seem to wholly believe that everything was okay, but his dad was still able to make him feel better. He used his hand to wipe his dripping nose and then reached out for his dad to hold it. Despite the mess, his dad took it without hesitating. There was the soft promise of ice cream and number six's mood brightening.

Sam felt a twinge of something inside her chest that she couldn't name as she watched the father and son leave through the door.

As she returned to her seat, an Asian girl, who was doing as good as Sam, was sitting in her own chair with her mother standing over her. The mother spoke rapidly in a foreign language, perhaps Chinese, Sam thought, but honestly had no clue. The girl, number fourteen, listened to her mother's tirade, even as it attracted the attention of the people coming back into the auditorium. It sounded like a lecture rather than a helpful pep talk, going by their body language and the mother's taut expression.

This had Samantha observing the other contestants as they returned to their seats, taking them in for the first time as she wondered who had someone banking on their success and who had someone who would still be proud if they lost.

When the competition started back up, Sam looked at her uncle's seat and saw that it was still empty. She couldn't stop herself from frowning. Despite knowing better, the part of her that was still a child sought his approval, but she knew she would never get it.

Before her parents' death, she never knew Uncle Edward to be a happy person, mostly due to the fact that whenever he and her father were in the same room, the subject of the inheritance always came up, and her father's response to that was always the same and it never failed to put his younger brother in a bad mood.

Now that he was dead, Edward wasn't as irritable whenever the inheritance was mentioned, just irritable about his casino profits. There were now only two brothers left and that was something a psychopath could look forward to. He had outlived his two eldest brothers; the oldest, Rubin, and Samantha's father, Augustus. Now he only had to outlive Cormac.

It wasn't until the competition was down to Sam and number fourteen that he reappeared. He sat back down in his seat without a glance towards the stage.

Sam blocked out her feelings and focused. She and number fourteen went into a standoff as they went down the proctor's list, switching off from the microphone almost in a routine. She was impressed by the girl's skill. It had been a while since she had gone one-on-one against another speller. The girl used a lot of the same memorization methods that she did. Ones that were more complicated and difficult to utilize for their age group.

After number fourteen knocked "disastrous" (a difficult word from the sixth grade list) out of the park, Sam replaced her at the microphone.

By now the stage lights were smoldering, beating down on the stage like the sun, and she was ready for this spelling bee to end. She adjusted the microphone and nodded at the proctor.

"Your word is, 'Sanctuary'."

Sam's eyes drifted down over the front row where her uncle was still looking down at his phone. She could win at any point now and he didn't acknowledge this. A voice in her head reminded her not to get upset over a thing that nothing could be done about.

"Sanctuary," she repeated.

Still, he could at least watch her while she took her turn, gift her that, but he hadn't once, and that made anger spark inside her along with a rare arrogance that she knew would get her in trouble, but couldn't stop. She was doing all the work. The only reason they were here was because of her. Uncle Edward only got what he wanted if she did well - if she _chose_ to do well. Uncle Edward only got what he wanted if she decided it.

If he wouldn't even watch her while she was up here, then why should she allow him this? Maybe being stashed in the basement like an undesirable that her uncle's family wanted hidden away was a better situation than she thought. The whole family was rotten to the core.

She was in the position to wipe away all of her uncle's satisfaction, and she took it.

"S-a-n-k-t-u-a-r-y. _Sanctuary_."

Her uncle looked up over the top of his phone, his expression unchanged but his eyes hard.

"I'm sorry but that is incorrect."

As the proctor announced number fourteen as the winner, Sam exited the stage. She glanced back at number fourteen on the stage with her trophy. Her mother was standing next to her, all smiles now as she clapped for her daughter.

Sam stepped back behind the curtain and let out a shaky breath of disbelief at what she had just done. A smile threatened the edges of her mouth, the first one in months, but she banished it when the curtain was pushed back again and her uncle appeared. His phone was closed and clutched in his hand.

As he approached her, she stared up at him with an unapologetic look. She felt proud. For a moment, she felt power and control.

Just for one, very brief moment - before her uncle slapped it off her face.

It was open-palmed, hitting her across her cheek, hard enough to knock her back on to her bottom. Stunned, she let out a soft grunt as she fell back against the hardwood. The track her mind was on skipped and it took a moment for her to realize what had happened. When she did, her hand came up to touch the burning skin of her cheek, flinching, as she looked up at her uncle in shock.

This wasn't the first time she had been hit, but it was always done by her cousins and other children, never by any of the adults.

"Get your coat, we're leaving," he said, turning away and mumbling under his breath, "fucking waste of time."

She watched him leave, still too stunned to move. It wasn't until the voices on the other side of the curtain faded and the lights were shut off that she finally climbed to her feet. The sound of her new flats tapping against the stage followed her out, her hand still cupping her hurting face as her eyes stung with tears.

What little remained of her broken childhood was left behind on that stage floor.

After that day, Samantha never participated in another spelling bee, and she never let anybody use her for their own gain again.

~O~

 _~Now~_

Sam slowly paced the floor of the apartment she had woken up in. Her arms were crossed under her chest as she traced the small area rug laying in the center of the room with her feet, the fibers itchy between her toes. She had woken up hours ago, feeling groggy and miserable from the familiar tasting concoction that Negan had forced down her throat, but instead of being in her cell, she found herself atop a twin-sized mattress dressed with clean sheets and a quilt.

The factory room-turned-makeshift apartment was one of the more furnished ones in the Sanctuary, usually only given to saviors, with a kitchenette and small sitting area with a table and chairs.

The kitchenette was stripped bare of food, and more notably silverware and cutlery, as well as the shelves on the walls and the wardrobe, but the utilities were fully functional. The generic floor lamp came on when she flipped the switch and the faucet in the kitchenette sink produced clean water. She wasted no time in sticking her head underneath to drink away her cotton mouth the second she noticed it.

She was still barefoot, dirty and wearing her black dress, but now a collection of fingerprint-sized bruises ran down her arms and legs from where she had been held down by Negan's saviors. She had poked around her new surroundings, exploring every inch while theorizing why she was put in here instead of her cell until there was nothing left to catalog and she grew bored, leaving her to idly pace, waiting for someone to come get her. She had already tried the door; it was locked.

Windows lined the wall on one side up near the ceiling. When she had woken up, it had been dark out, but the sky brightened not long after and now it was almost late morning by the time she heard footsteps in the hallway outside the room. The gait was too normal to be Negan's, but it was also to light to be Dwight's or anybody else's she could recognize. She stopped pacing at the sound of keys jingling in the lock before the door opened to reveal one of the few women saviors in Negan's ranks.

Sam had seen this one around; young with curly blonde hair. She had a nose piercing and a relatively fresh-looking neck tattoo that Sam suspected she had gotten to look tougher among her male counterparts, and perhaps to a lesser extent, distract from the acne scars scattered over her otherwise attractive face that she had caked with flaking foundation. She looked around Sam's age, but a name didn't come to mind.

The savior regarded Sam with a critical look, glancing over her frame and crossed arms, checking to make sure she hadn't somehow gotten her hands on a weapon, or fashioned one from something typically harmless.

"I'm Laura," the woman said without a greeting. She had her shoulders cocked back and her small chin raised to look tough despite her size. She held up a drawstring knapsack in her hand, waving it. "I'm here to take you to the showers so you can clean up and then I'm taking you to Negan. I've got a taser in my back pocket, if you try to run, or try to hurt me or yourself, Negan ordered me to use it."

When Sam didn't do anything but stare, Laura shifted her weight to her other foot and squared her jaw.

"You've caused a lot of shit for us since you came here, making the saviors look like idiots and making the workers think that they don't have to follow the rules. I'm not going to pass up the chance for some payback, so believe me, I'm not afraid to use it."

"I never told the workers that they didn't have to follow the rules," Sam said frankly, narrowing her eyes, "and the saviors look like idiots because they _are_ idiots. That isn't my fault."

Laura hid her annoyance behind a scoff, but the sound of her hand tightening around the doorknob gave it away. She stepped to the side to open up the entry way and nodded for the other woman to step through.

"Negan said I couldn't taser you for being a smart ass, but he said I could give you a charley horse, so shut up and follow me before I get mad."

Sam hesitated for a moment before dropping her arms and walking forward. Being taken to Negan wasn't a charming idea, but getting to shower was and after all this time wallowing in her own filth, the concept almost made her lightheaded.

As Laura closed the door to the room, Sam noted the radio clipped to her belt as well as the outline of the aforementioned taser in her back jeans pocket. She pursed her lips, a little perturbed before turning forward and crossing her arms again. There weren't any plans of escaping, or of another suicide attempt, but the disadvantages still put her off.

The halls were empty and so was the shower room. It was difficult to tell if that was deliberate because she wasn't sure where exactly she was in the building. The wings didn't differ all that much in the halls. Laura pushed her into the locker room and she nearly jumped out of her skin when her bare feet touched the tiled floor. Without the steam from the showers to raise the temperature, the locker room was freezing. The blonde handed her the knapsack.

Sifting through it, Sam moved around the privacy wall that separated the toilet area from the lockers and shower stalls. There was a bundle of clean clothing and a fully stocked care package inside. She pulled out the bundle, glancing it over before depositing it on a bench and looking through the package. There were small bottles of generic hair and body soap, deodorant, hairbrush, tampons and sanitary napkins, and a toothbrush and toothpaste.

She was even allotted a razor, but was told by Laura that if she saw any blood, it would be called in. Sam wanted to point out that if she opened one of her arteries, it wouldn't matter if it got called in, but at the risk of getting the razor taken away, she didn't say anything. She liked the good hygiene that came with shaving and she didn't actually want to die, much less bleed out in a dirty shower stall. That was the whole point of going up on the Sanctuary roof, to better her chances of an instantaneous death.

Choosing a stall, she turned the water on high, letting it get as hot as the ancient boiler in the old building would allow. As steam began to rise, she reached behind her back and pulled down the zipper of her dress. It slipped easily from her shoulders and pooled at her feet. Shedding her bra and panties, she pulled back the curtain and stepped in under the scolding spray.

Goosebumps erupted at the sensation and she gasped, taking in a mouthful of steam. Every nerve in her body reignited and her sensitivity was dialed back up to a hundred. She stood underneath the cascade, turning her head downwards to tuck her chin against her sternum while her arms came up to hug herself. Steam fogged around her, trapped behind the curtain and suffocating like smoke.

Sam closed her eyes, letting the water drench her hair so the black locks spilled over her shoulders creating its own waterfall of ink. The heat kept her sedentary as the feeling of being clean again brought her comfort and control.

She grabbed the little bottles of soap given to her and washed her body and hair, scrubbing until her skin burned red. Filth mingled with the suds and she watched as they slipped from her body and were taken down the drain. When the water lessened to lukewarm temperatures, she finally turned it off.

With her arms wrapped around herself to ward off the chill in the locker room, she pulled back the shower curtain and carefully padded over to the bench where her towel was. From the paper towel dispenser, she took a handful and dabbed at her face and arms as she regarded her knew clothes; a pair of dark jeans, an old blue thermal with pilled cuffs and a pair of boots. Once dressed, she walked back over to the toilet area to the sinks. She pulled out the hairbrush and worked at the knots in her medium length hair.

Her hair used to be longer, before the outbreak, reaching all the way down to the small of her back. Her cousin used to mockingly call it her "Pocahontas hair", because it looked like what every non-Native imagined Native hair to look like.

After all the evacuation zones and safe camps had been overrun, and all facets of government and civil order were blown into obscurity, Sam had lobbed off the black tresses, cutting it into a choppy, style-less bob that stuck out in random places. At the time, she had done it because it was more practical, but also because she had been feeling melodramatic.

She had been alone, and not in an angsty, woe-is-me kind of way - _literally_ alone.

There had been no one left on the reservation or in town because the military had evacuated them, but only to be overrun and killed somewhere else later. There had been no one left in all of Alaska, as far as she had known at the time. It had been hard not to feel a punch of melancholy at the pure alone-ness, even for someone like her. It didn't matter how introverted an individual was, people needed people and the idea of being the last living person on earth wasn't appealing outside of a working-Joe fantasy conceived from being overwhelmed by everyday life. It had been terrifying.

She eventually came across other survivors. Some were friendly while others were nowhere near, but the world didn't seem so empty anymore. She didn't integrate with any group, but it was a comfort to know that she wouldn't live out the rest of her days being forced to talk to inanimate objects, desperate for human interaction like in that Will Smith movie - or that Tom Hanks movie - or that Joaquin Phoenix movie - or that...other Will Smith movie.

Laura cleared her throat, loud and deliberate, pulling Sam out of her head. She realized she had been standing there, staring at nothing with the hairbrush stopped halfway through her hair. The blonde told her to wrap it up as she shifted anxiously from foot to foot. Negan had told her not to rush with Sam, but she didn't want to take too long and make him think that she couldn't wrangle the other woman without help. None of them had all day to stand around and wait while the rat daydreamed.

Sam finished brushing her hair and moved on to her teeth, working the bristles over her gums until they bled. The cool mint and the swig of mouthwash that followed burned the inside of her like fire as the denatured alcohol sterilized the build up of bacteria. After placing everything back into the pack and dropping her towel into the laundry bin, she handed the bag back to Laura and let the shorter woman lead her out of the locker room.

Because she no longer wore the black dress that she had left behind in the locker room, people weren't able to easily recognize her in the halls anymore. They climbed the Sanctuary to the very top, passing the wives' bedrooms and entering the parlor, which unfortunately wasn't uninhabited.

Sam heard the faint voices of the wives inside, but before she could prepare herself to come face to face with the lot for the first time, Laura pushed opened the double doors and shoved her inside. As she appeared in the doorway, heads turned and conversations tampered off. She received a mix bag of expressions ranging from soft curiosity to hard contempt.

Negan had seven wives in total, she had already known that, but she had scarcely seen any of them, not since she had discovered their existence months back. She didn't like to judge appearances, but since these women's appearances are their sole contribution to the Sanctuary, she didn't censor her thoughts against what she could plainly see with her eyes; their skin deep attributes. There was a wife for each natural hair color with varying heights and body types. Seven wives, one for each day of the week.

Lounging across one of the love seats with a magazine, was a leggy red head with porcelain skin, a fit figure and a flat chest. Sam, with her deficiency, couldn't see the full vibrancy of her hair. It was a dull, caramel color to her, but with the woman's skin and features, she took a guess that it was actually closer to copper.

Sitting on a faux furred ottoman next to her was a honey blonde with a pixie cut, plump lips, button nose, and an obvious boob job.

Near the windows with a handful of playing cards was a woman with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail who looked decent enough with makeup, but was the least attractive of the lot. Her choice of black dress only highlighted the awkward differences in her figure compared to the others.

Playing with her was a busty and curvy black woman, compact and on the short side.

Sitting on a stool by the bar, there was a brassy haired woman, who was very attractive but wore too much makeup and looked too deliberately groomed, probably to maintain an excessive body hair problem.

Standing next to her was a tall brunette in fishnets with long hair that fell in waves down her shoulders and on to the ample cleavage accented by the leather corset top she was wearing.

Sam hoped there wouldn't be introductions. Maybe they were a group of perfectly nice ladies, or maybe they were as catty as others believed, but she didn't care about finding out.

The only wife who she knew the name was the one who used to be married to Dwight - legitimately married to him - Sherry, but had chosen to become one of Negan's wives, his first wife, even, for the rise in status and freedom to not work for points. Hallway and lunchroom talk revealed that she was the reason why Dwight had been disfigured.

Once a woman has "married" Negan, they had to leave their husbands, boyfriends, significant others for him and fooling around behind his back was a serious offense. At some point, Dwight and Sherry had rekindled the physical aspect of their marriage and got caught, earning the scrawny man the iron; the tool that Negan used for corporal punishment for serious rule-breakers.

When Sam first came to the Sanctuary, Dwight's facial scar had been mostly healed with the exception of a few patches of pink skin, so it had happened not long before she had showed up.

It explained a lot about his current demeanor and why he especially disliked Sam so much. He had told her himself once, when he screamed at her in her cell one night. If he couldn't get away with breaking the rules, neither should she. He had just been a man missing his ex-wife and that led him to do something stupid, but Sam had been a cut and dry thief. He was disfigured for life while she remained, physically, unscathed, and they both knew the only reason behind that was because of her gender. If she were male, she would have been given the iron, too, regardless of Negan's interest in her mechanical expertise.

Of course, that wasn't her fault, but Dwight couldn't exactly vent his anger towards the actual source of his pain.

Or rather, the _perceived_ source of his pain.

Not that she was defending the man, but Sherry didn't have to marry Negan. He always made it a point to explicitly state that. Sam had even heard that Negan gave her choice to go back to Dwight and spare him the iron, but she chose to stay where she was. There were rumors that the woman had a reputation for being a ladder-climber, and that she had shown interest in Negan long before the Sanctuary. They're relationship was on shaky ground now because of what he had done to Dwight, but once upon a time, Sherry had happily gone to her leader's bed - even occupied his spot as his favorite wife.

Most of this was only speculation for Sam, but it didn't seem far-fetched.

Her eyes trailed over the faces staring back at her and eventually landed on the tall one.

She had to be Sherry, because she was obviously the prized one; the one with the nicest clothes and the nicest jewelry. All the other women had their shortcomings, some more than others, but the brunette looked perfect, an absolute fantasy for any touch-starved man trying to survive the apocalypse.

Strangely, her face held only curiosity as she studied Samantha. The others looked on curious as well, but their expressions were mixed with caution, suspicion and contempt, brought on by Sam's reputation and the fact that she had stolen from one of them so she could get the benefits of being Negan's wife without really being his wife.

Sherry seemed genuinely curious of her, though. The Brassy brunette was the only one who looked at her with blatant hostility. If Sam were to take a wild guess, it would be that she was the one most romantically attached to Negan and she saw Sam as another contender for his attention.

And she had been taking up a lot of Negan's attention, lately.

Sam stood in their parlor, her arms hanging at her sides and her face looking disinterested. So disinterested that most of them couldn't look at her for long, pretending to go back to what they were doing, but still giving cursory glances. They were used to looks of lust and awe whenever someone new graced their presence. Stepping into the wives' sparkling boudoir was like stepping back in time when visitors got an eyeful of cocktail dresses, body glitter and high heels. Having someone regard them with a blank expression instead, must feel uncomfortable.

She waited to see if any of them would speak, but it didn't look like they would. Maybe Negan had said something beforehand, or maybe they wanted her to think that they were just as disinterested in her as she was in them. In that case, she truly wished their endeavor the best of luck because that wasn't going to happen easily.

Some people have smiles that can light up a room, other people have frowns that can cause depression. It wasn't difficult to tell which category Sam fell into.

Laura intentionally let the room fester in the tension that Sam's appearance caused. The corner of her mouth curled up as she watched the painful scene. Her eyes shifted between Sam and the group of women, just as curious to see if someone would address the elephant in the room. When no one did, she spoke up.

"Awkward silence, a gay baby is born," she badgered, clamping a hand down on Sam's shoulder. "Come on, the boss is waiting."

She steered her towards a door that didn't lead to Negan's office and knocked. They heard a shout for them to enter and Laura opened the door to reveal a bedroom.

The decor was just as grand as the rest of Negan's floor, with a four poster bed dressed with high thread count sheets, decorative drapes, leather and dark wood furniture, the same gaudy lamps and paperweights littering his office, and even a gazelle mount with its head and unblinking marble eyes...turned towards the bed.

(She hoped that wasn't there for any intentional reasons.)

Negan was seated on the couch near the windows with one long leg propped over the knee of the other and a heavy binder resting in his lap. His leather jacket was draped over the foot of the bed, leaving him in a white t-shirt that showcased a few of his tattoos and the sharp planes of his shoulder poked through the cotton. There was also a pair of rimless glasses on his face, perched low on the bridge of his nose. His bat Lucille was leaning against the side of the couch and there was a tall glass of lemonade on the coffee table in front of him.

He seemed engrossed with the papers in his lap, but once Sam and Laura stepped into the room, his eyes flickered up over the top of his lens and his surprisingly serene resting face was split by his trademark smile. He removed his glasses.

"There she is!" he exclaimed, taking in Samantha from head to toe, "Miss Congeniality, looking so nice and clean. You pretty up like a high class escort."

After he finished shamelessly eyeing the way the blue fabric of her shirt stretched across her breasts and how closely it hugged her middle, he gestured for her to take the seat across from him. As she seat down in the chair, sinking into the high grade leather, Negan pointed with his glasses at Laura.

"Thank you, Miss Laura, for taking such good care of my favorite little gem and making sure she washed behind her ears, but I think I can handle things from here. Why don't you go pick out something pretty from the marketplace, on me."

Laura gave an affirmative nob before turning and walking out of the room, leaving Sam alone with Negan. He chuckled, curling his nose up in glee at her before putting his glasses back on and turning his attention down at the binder in his lap. He leaned further into the couch with a sigh while Sam sat stiff in her chair, her spine straight and her hands on her knees.

"Did you roofie me?" she asked, once the door clicked shut.

"Hmm?" Negan looked up, obviously in the mood to be theatrical, "oh yeah, sorry about that. I would have had you sedated, but the good shit is saved for when we need to do surgery. I'm a practical man, mouse. Doesn't matter how special you are to me, I've gotta put my people first. Hardasses who insist they're not apart of my community get the DIY anesthesia."

"So you used cheap roofies instead?"

"How do you know they were cheap?" he asked, derisively, like he was insulted that she dare call his rape drugs anything but stellar. "Maybe I was a fucking gentleman and gave you the premium shit because I think you're the fucking bees knees, babe?"

"I woke up with an aftertaste. Older forms of Rohypnol are bitter - older forms are cheaper - cheap leaves an aftertaste."

He considered this, his eyes drifting upwards for a moment before smiling.

"Right, that makes sense," he chuckled. "My boys raided a student apartment complex near one of the George Mason campuses and found a bunch of date rape drugs. Don't worry, we don't use them for any nefarious purposes. We just give them to people who need to chill the fuck out for a while. They stay locked up in Carson's cabinets with everything else."

Sam made an ambiguous sound that made Negan chuckle again. There was a short silence between them. The older man was looking at his papers again, his eyes sweeping back and forth from behind his glasses as he mouthed the words he was reading, just like he had done when he had read her journals in front of her. The memory felt like it happened months ago, but it really had been only one. Barely one, even.

"Have you ever been roofied?" he asked, speaking conversationally, as if asking if she had ever found a hair in her breakfast while eating at an IHOP, instead of something inappropriate.

"Yes," she replied, almost as casual.

She realized that she should elaborate when Negan's eyes shot up from his papers with abject panic. The type of panic when a person realized that they might've just inadvertently come across someone's most shameful secret while trying to be funny and were now horrified that they were going to be told about it.

"I did it to myself."

Negan's heart dropped into his ball sack and became a beating third testicle at the scare she had given him, because he _had_ been trying to be funny, only for it to backfire and blow a load in his face, but the relief that it wasn't an instance of a Friday night gone horrible had his shoulders sagging again, the panic fading.

(And _thank God_ for that, because he would've felt like the biggest cockshit.)

The shock didn't subside, though, and confusion was added to the slapstick mix of expressions on his face. He didn't call bullshit, because drugging yourself for some unknown reason sounded well within the realm of possibility for Samantha - right up the alley of 'what the fuck, why the fuck, how the fuck, and, no really, what-why-how _the fuck?_ ' that she was always popping a squat in.

He couldn't understand fucking why, and honestly, he was almost too afraid to ask, because unless she told him that she was a retarded kid who took Rohypnol thinking it would get her high because she had chickened out of popping ecstasy with the rest of bible camp, then he didn't see this being a very happy or hilarious story.

But then again, "almost" never helped anybody get their dick wet, globally or historically, so "almost" never stopped him from doing jack shit.

"Why in the mother fuck did you roofie yourself?"

Sam thought for a moment whether or not she should answer, but then figured that it couldn't hurt anything. It happened over a decade ago and all parties involved except for her were died now.

"I wasn't- _I'm not_ , a popular person," she eventually replied. "I thought it would be a practical thing to explore - to know what it was like to be drugged firsthand, in case someone tried to do it to me for real."

"You roofied yourself because people didn't like you?"

Her nose curled up, indignant.

"When you put it like _that_ , it sounds ridiculous."

"Isn't it?"

She sighed, closing her eyes before opening them again. The binder in Negan's lap laid forgotten across his thighs and his glasses were nearly falling of his face, but he was too invested with her to push them back up. His tongue was poking out from between his teeth and he looked enthralled, but his brow was knotted with something that could be mistaken as concern.

"There was a group of girls who hated me," she went on, "they used to make me do their homework for them, but eventually I told them to leave me alone, otherwise I would tell the dean. The meanest one cornered me in the bathroom and told me that they would roofie me and let all the guys take turns raping me."

"You're fucking kidding," he accused, finally calling it. "That's the most fucked up thing I've heard in a while."

"I know, she said that 'all the guys' would rape me and I fell for it. Who is even 'all the guys'? I should have realized that it wasn't a thought out threat."

"What?" Negan breathed, disbelieving, "Jesus Christ, I'm not talking about - I meant the fucking girl!"

She blinked, "oh."

His reaction, like he had just lost all hope in humanity if he hadn't already, made Sam squirm in her seat. She already regretted telling him. She should have ignored his question like everything else brash and crude that he said. She never realized just how odd some of the things she did or said were until she told someone. At the time it seemed like just as practical of a learning experience as anything else.

Taking a roofie just because she had been scared of a couple of bullies sounded like an overreaction to some people, but they didn't know the whole story. They never knew the whole story, and neither did Negan, and Sam being Sam wasn't going to tell him it.

"Who says something so fucking fucked up?"

"She was an angry girl," she said, as if that explained everything. "I doubt her friends would have gone through with it, but I wasn't going to put it pass her to try something at least, so I bought a Rohypnol tablet from a dealer who sold in the park at night and took it alone in my room. There was an aftertaste when I woke up in the morning."

"Still, that's fucked up. Why didn't you tell a teacher, or the dean, or - fuck, your parents? That isn't your run of the mill, juvenile, 'she called me fat', 'she called me a slut' bullshit, that's grounds for fucking expulsion!"

"You don't understand teenage girls," she deadpanned. "Girl bullies aren't like boy bullies. Duking it out with them like the playground bully won't make these kinds of girls leave you alone. Standing up for yourself and winning a fight won't gain their begrudging respect and there's no code of honor that makes them get over it and move on like with boys. Piss them off once and they'll hold it over your head for years. You've got seven wives, you should have an idea of how these things work."

Negan didn't reply, because she was right, he didn't understand teenage girls. Sure, he once taught them, knew their behaviors, but he wasn't about to pretend to know the reason behind half the things they said or did, mostly because there was no reason behind them. He didn't understand them and never felt the desire to. His job had only required him to do two things basically: teach them the curriculum, and make sure they didn't get pregnant while on his watch. Anything beyond that was above his paygrade.

He fixed her with an unreadable look before going back to his binder, mumbling under his breath, "that shit wouldn't have flown with me," and she wondered about it but didn't ask; instead, squirreled it away in her head for later.

"I blame the parents," she offered up, "and rap music."

He looked at her, thrown as he recognized that she had just made a joke before letting out a snort and shaking his head.

Letting the conversation go as just that, a bleak joke, he looked back down at his binder, missing the way Sam's eyes drifted off into a morbid memory.

While she had meant it as a joke, she wasn't entirely kidding. What was really "fucked up" about the whole thing was that the "meanest one" had been her cousin, Tama. She blamed the parents, alright; the couldn't-be-bothered and the psychopath. Tama grew up a very angry person, a perfect molotov cocktail mix of them both.

That wasn't something she was going to divulge to Negan, though.

He cleared his throat, finally putting aside his work on the cushion next to him and removing his glasses.

"Didn't mean to start this off fucking grim," he said, picking up his glass of lemonade, "but considering what happened yesterday, I guess it's unavoidable. You do remember what I'm talking about, right? The roofies didn't scatter your brain at all in that department?"

"Yes, I remember."

"So to clarify, then, you remember trying to fucking fling yourself off the side of my building?"

"Yes."

"You remember giving up."

He said it as an accusation, not a question.

"Yes," she replied.

"You remember trying to take a fucking chunk out of Dwight's arm and-"

"You're not going to make me feel bad about it," she interrupted. "If you're trying to figure out if I'm going to try again, I won't. That was the only opportunity I had to convince myself to do it, because I didn't, and still don't, want to die. I just couldn't go on living with the way things were. It wasn't a lapse in judgment, but it's not something I'll be able to do again unless I get infected and are going to die anyways."

He leaned back into the couch and studied her as he held his drink in his hand. There was a long moment of consideration where he tilted his head to the side and scratched at his beard, letting out a thoughtful hum.

"Alright, fair enough," he eventually said, raising a hand and giving a dismiss wave, "I believe you."

He stared at the half-melted ice floating in his drink as his fingers rubbed at the condensation dripping down the sides of the glass. It took him almost a full minute to move before he leaned forward and placed the glass back on the coffee table. He stayed hunched over, with his arms resting on his thighs and his hands hanging between his legs.

"Look," he sighed, reaching up and pinching the skin between his eyebrows, "I'm tired of this tomfuckery - seriously tired. Congratulations, you did it. You wore me down. Any more of this cat and mouse bullshit and I'm going to be the one jumping off the goddamn roof."

Negan's more obnoxious mannerisms were dropping and she knew this was him trying to be sincere.

"I'm going to level with you," he said, "I'm not going to let you go because I _can't_ let you go, and if you're really as smart as I believe you are, you already know all the reasons why. But politics and public image as an unrelenting motherfucker aside, it's not just about me not being able to let you leave. I don't want you to go."

She gave him a look that would have made him laugh if he wasn't making an effort to be serious. It was a cross between suspicion, doubt and honest to God confusion.

' _Yeah, I bet that's a foreign concept to you, you sad, adorable freak of nature_ ,' he thought before continuing.

"I want you to stay here, with me, and not just because of the things you can do for me. I like you. You're a huge shit, but I like you. I like people who think differently from others, always have. Don't get me wrong, I'm still not going to let you leave, you won't wear me down that much, but I just want you to know that you're not unwanted here, by anybody, even if some don't realize it yet. I can tell you've caught shit in your life just being who you are, but I think you'll be surprised how open-minded people are these days, especially around here. You have a place here where you can really shine.

I'm going to make you pay off your debt, there's no negotiating that. I'm tired of having to do things this way with you, but if you rather pay your debt by serving time as a prisoner, then I'll give you that choice. I'll give you a new cell with a mattress so you don't have to sleep on the floor, you'll be fed regularly, you'll be able to shower regularly, you'll be given books to keep occupied, and most importantly, there'll be no more humiliation. I'm done with that, it's not fun anymore and I think the workers get the picture now that my punishments are as serious as they fucking come, no matter how nice your tits are."

He paused, giving her a chance to say something, but when she didn't, he kept going.

"But, if you rather be able to move around the building, have your own room and have access to the things we offer here, you'll have to pay me back by contributing to the community. And if by the end you still want to leave, I'll let you. We'll be squared with no hard feelings. I'll even give you some supplies to help you get back on your feet. If you don't want to be a savior - fine. If you don't want to be a worker - great. You can be whatever the fuck you want to be, just so long as I benefit from it. Work with me, not for me."

"But still answer to you?"

"Everybody answers to somebody in this world, there's no escaping that for any of us, mouse."

"Who do you answer to?"

"Lucille," he said, gesturing to the bat, "fucking _duh_."

Sam looked down at her hands in her lap, considering his words.

Weighing the options and feeling a little overwhelmed, she stood from her chair. When Negan didn't say anything, she wandered over to one of the windows and pushed back the drapes, looking out the fogged glass with her arms crossed, letting his words sink in. As she did this, Negan reached for his lemonade again, leaning back into the couch with one arm resting along the back. He swirled the glass around, looking at what was left of the ice and pulling a face. Despite it being watered down as hell, he took a drink.

"So, I've been meaning to ask," he said after swallowing and smacking his lips, taking an ice chip between his teeth, "what flavor are you anyways?"

She looked away from the window, arching an eyebrow. Negan smirked at how sexy the look was.

"Excuse me?"

"Your features look vanilla, but you've a shot of something else in you, don't ya, so what's your flavor?"

"You mean my race?" she asked after it dawned on her what he was getting at.

He made a flippant noise while chewing on another piece of ice, staring down into his glass.

"I'm Irish and Native American."

He looked up from his glass with an excited smile, snapping his fingers and pointing. "Native American, that's it! Fucking Christ, that was driving me crazy."

Sam turned her head back towards the window, closing her eyes and exhaling through her nose as she realized where this was going to go.

Whenever someone found out she was Native, there was always a slew of questions that they asked; prominently, what their spirit animal was and if she had ever gone on a spirit journey with mystical guidance from the great spirits of the earth to find her calling in life - the answering being: no. The most "mystical guidance" she had ever gotten on a "spirit journey" was once asking a random passerby whether the new Burger King fell to the left of St. Jameson street, or the right on Hill Avenue (they didn't know).

Stereotypes or even blatant racial slurs barely phased her. Given all that she had been through in her life, it would be ridiculous to get worked up over _words_ , but that didn't mean being asked over and over wasn't annoying, especially when it was Negan, who perpetuated _everything_.

"I was thinking at first that you were some kind of Mexican," he said, "but when you didn't grow one of those gnarly chick mustaches that they get from not waxing or shaving after a month, I figured not. You and your people's body hair situation is not bad, I gotta say. I've got a wife who would kill for that, especially now that there's no Pretty Kitty salons around to help manage her 'natural garden'. Too bad, it's like a rainforest down there. Serious hippy-grandma shit, except the printer hasn't run out of ink yet, thank God."

Sam turned her head and gave him a withered look that begged him to be quiet, but he either completely missed it or ignored it.

"And don't get me started on her face when she runs out of wax strips. I'm not afraid of a little body hair on my women - fuck like I'm even one to judge - but I swear to God, she looks like Mr. Snuffleupagus from Sesame Street, but don't tell her I said that, though. She'll kick me in my sack."

She should've jumped before Negan even stepped foot on that roof.

"Native american, how magical," he marveled, smiling giddy into his glass before asking: "Hey, what's my spirit animal?"

"Roadkill," Sam snapped.

"I guess you must get that one a lot, then," he chuckled at her pouting. "I think it's a legit question."

"I'm also Irish, but nobody asks me if I've seen a leprechaun before."

"Have you?"

"No."

"Fuck, that would've been cool," he said with fake disappointment before narrowing his eyes at her playfully. "You're one of those lucky mixed fuckers who get all the good traits from their parents and none of the shitty ones, aren't you? Because I once knew a guy in my developmental psychology class who was a mix of Indian and some fucking Norwegian, I think, and he looked like a dog's anus."

Sam decided to bring them back to the original topic of conversation. She hadn't wanted to, but she would do anything to get off this subject.

"If I decide to work, will I get access to the workshops?"

"Woah, slow your roll there," he chided. "Eventually, yes, something like that can be arranged, but I'm not just going to _give_ you free reign of my workshops right off the bat. No, you'll have to earn that. But before you can earn that privilege, you'll need to earn the privilege of being able to work a job on your own, and before you can earn _that_ privilege, you'll need to earn the privilege of being allowed out of my sight for more than ten seconds. See the pattern here?"

"And how do I do that?"

"You'll start by working for me, _directly_ ," he replied, "that way I can keep my eye on you."

"Meaning?"

"Well," he gave her a coy smile, "I've always wanted an assistant."

"You can't be serious."

"Oh, I'm dead serious. Everyday you're going to report outside this room, first thing in the morning, ready to be my fucking shadow. You'll make notes on whatever the fuck I tell you to, you'll keep records of whatever the fuck I tell you to, and do whatever the fuck I tell you to."

He raised a hand and counted her new duties off with his fingers.

"You'll plan my schedules for the week, take notes during meetings, schedule appointments, bring me my meals, handle my laundry. You'll take down everything, I want everything to be recorded and documented. I want the story of my 'glorious empire'," he used his fingers for quotations, "to be passed down for generations to come - fuck, you'll even make transcriptions of my fuck fests with my wives if I tell you to."

"I never said it was glorious, or an empire."

"I know what you said, but I all heard was ' _I know it might get me killed, but_ _I'm only pretending to be a bitch_ , _I secretly think Negan is the greatest fucking thing since blueberry-flavored lube was invented, I would ride his big swinging dick all night long if only I wasn't a raging boner-killer, I love the Sanctuary, I want to live here forever and ever_ '. Don't worry, I read the subtext loud and clear, baby."

Sam opened her mouth to express a polite word on what she thought of the nightmare fuel he had just spewed, but he cut her off.

"If you show me that you can behave yourself and play by the rules, you can be given some notebook paper and a crayon to work on your little projects and the fucked up memoirs of an autistic nilhist - or whatever the fuck you are - in the meantime, _after_ you're done taking care of me."

"A _crayon_? You can't draw up blueprints with a crayon. You can't even draw with a crayon, they're terrible."

"Tough titties," he shrugged, "gotta earn the privilege to use a pencil. You'll be locked in your room every night, so you'll have plenty of time to yourself. If you come up with something juicy that's both plausible and doable with what we've got on hand, then we'll talk, but until then, you'll be my special little worker. You'll stick by my side like a little fucking poodle inside the bag of one of those mini skirt wearing, Botox-filled, bedazzled jean jacket wearing, anorexic Oompa Loompas you see walking around Beverly Hills."

"That reference was so early 2000's, I just heard the echo of an orange sherbet iMac G3 booting up," Sam fired back, holding a hand to her ear.

When Negan scowled at her, she made a show of carelessly dropping her hand. She braced both hands on the coffee table in front of her and stood from her chair like a business man sealing the deal and ready to shove off.

"Now, I won't say that I find your offer ridiculous because I don't want to join in on the beating of an almost two-decade old horse, so instead I'll say that I find your offer ludicrous. I'll work so I can leave, but I won't be your receptionist and maid. So just give me my complimentary Von Dutch hat and I'll roll up out of here on my heelies and you can go back to masturbating to a picture of an underage Hilary Duff."

"There sure as hell ain't going to be any of that smart ass mouth," he warned, glaring. "In case you didn't pick up on my mad vibes, _dude_ , this isn't an offer I make fucking lightly. Either you do this, work off the points you fucking owe me so we can release you back into the wild - where you clearly fucking belong for confusing the shit out of me and making me feel _ancient_ , you bitch - or you'll go back in that cell for the rest of your miserable fucking days. So shut your mouth and just be grateful that I'm giving you a choice in this at all."

"And what's that cost?" she challenged. "How do I earn _that_ privilege? Give you my undying loyalty, my unquestioning respect? My first born child?"

He smiled and waved her words away. "Loyalty and respect don't mean diddly if you don't mean it, and I know you won't ever mean it, and your first born child is probably going to be mine anyways, so that just seems redundant."

"I'd rather get a pap smear from a doctor practicing medicine out of a station wagon parked behind Wendy's."

"Given the state of things, that's probably what the doctors left are doing now anyways, mouse, so watch what you wish for. We all gotta watch what we say. Karma's a bitch, especially now that we don't have the Buddhists to vouch for us and harass us with peace and harmony beads, asking for donations and pretending they don't speak English when we say no."

She scoffed. If that was his argument, then he picked the worst choice.

Sam didn't believe in karma. It was a comforting idea, but she didn't believe in it, not even in the slightest.

For karma to be real, there would have to be a sense of fairness to the world, a reason for why things happen the way they do. But life wasn't fair, was it? And sometimes horrible things happen for no good reason and to the completely wrong people. It would be nice to think that the people who have done bad would one day get their comeuppance for it - and perhaps they do in some sense, maybe they do suffer some misfortune that measures up, but she didn't believed that it was truly in any way correlated.

Sometimes the bully in high school doesn't grow up to be a deadbeat loser. Sometimes the guy who cuts you off in traffic doesn't get pulled over and ticketed. The racist never sees the error in their way of thinking and the corrupt cop never gets caught.

But Negan's tangent was just ridiculous enough to elicit a response, despite her knowing by now that it was pointless and doing so would only encourage him and reinforce the behavior, like a dog drinking out of the toilet.

"Do you even know what you're talking about half the time?" she accused.

"Not in the slightest," he replied, smiling. "Now get the fuck out of here, you ungrateful turd. I'll radio Laura so she can take you to pick out something to wear. I'm running a legit operation here so dress like a fucking professional. I expect you here first thing in the morning - not that there's a chance you won't be because I'm going to send someone to make sure that you are, but you get the picture."

Sam moved to stand from her chair, but then Negan made a sound like he had just remembered something and she reluctantly lowered herself back down.

"Oh, and Dwight's fine by the way, since you asked."

"I didn't."

"Yeah, you got him good - seven stitches, fuck, never would have begged you for a biter," he mused before raising a hand and waving his finger back and forth at her. "No more of that, either."

He didn't vocalize a threat, just leaving it at that, but it was there.

When he didn't say anything else, she stood from her chair, finally free to leave. She made for the door, her hand closing around the knob, but Negan's voice stopped her again.

"Hang on, I'll walk you out."

With her back facing him, she seized up in frustration and closed her eyes against the urge to growl. The sound of groaning leather came as she heard him haul himself to his feet with a grunt and approach her. She turned to face him as he stepped up, closing the space between them and making her crane her head back took meet his gaze.

He let out a wistful sigh, looking down at her. For a long moment he didn't say anything as he stared down at her, smiling.

"I enjoy our talks," he teased, squinting at her and grinning.

Sam rolled her eyes and opened the door.

He motioned for her to go first and she stepped back out into the parlor.

Unlike when she had arrived, the wives didn't turn their heads to look at her when she reappeared. In fact, it was almost as if once they heard the door opening, they looked away from where they had been watching it the entire time and pretended to be preoccupied with something else. The walls weren't thin enough to overhear much of her and Negan's conversation. What were they expecting to hear?

Sam scanned the room, taking in how pointedly each wife was not looking at her. It wasn't until Negan stepped out that they finally looked up. Another tense silence took over as they all seemed to wait; Sam waiting for the wives to do something, the wives waiting for Negan to do something, and Negan waiting for something clever to say.

He looked in between Sam and his wives, arching a brow and frowning at the lack of eye contact.

"Oh damn, you guys didn't introduce yourselves?" he asked, pretending to be surprised. "Was that that awkward-gay baby silence I heard earlier? Jesus, what are we animals now? Are we going to start sniffing each other's asses in greeting instead of saying 'hello'? Well, that's fucking gross. I guess I'll do the introductions since apparently I'm the only one with any Goddamn social skills around here."

He motioned for Sam to step forward so that she was front and center.

"Samantha, let me introduce you to my beloved darlings; this is Sherry, Valeria, Sadie, Tanya, Frankie and Amber," he sounded off, pointing to the tall one, the angry one, the black one, the ugly duckling, the redhead and the blonde, respectively, before leaning in close to her ear and cupping a hand over his mouth. "Don't feel bad if you can't remember all their names, I'm surprised as shit that I did just now. I usually don't."

He had said that loud enough for the wives to hear, only making his voice raspy rather than actually lowering it to a whisper, but none of the women seemed offended.

Negan looked down at her in expectation. She knew what he wanted, but she hoped that if she just stood there and said nothing, he would move on. It took almost a full minute of uncomfortable silence with him staring at her with a smile, unrelenting, before she let out a sigh.

"Hello, wives," she said, dry and unenthused, speaking more to the air above their heads than the ladies themselves.

Satisfied with her response, Negan continued with their introduction, gesturing ostentatiously at Sam.

"Wives, this is Samantha."

"Sam," she corrected.

" _Sam_ ," he echoed with emphasis, smirking. "She was just on her way out."

He moved so that she could leave, but as he stepped to the side, one of his wives raised her hand.

"Negan, when do I get my dress back?" the angry one, Valeria, asked.

"Uhh, never," he replied, scratching his chin and pulling a face like that was the stupidest question he had ever heard. "It's Sam's dress now."

Sam watched as the wife became visibly more upset, not at all pleased with his answer. Her eyes widened and her mouth pinched like she had just sucked on a lemon. She stood from her stool despite the hand that Sherry had on her shoulder to keep her still and pointed at the dark haired woman standing next to her husband.

"But she broke into my room and stole it!"

"Don't even start with that shit, Val," Negan rolled his eyes. "I already got you a fucking replacement and you haven't even worn it yet, so don't pretend you're real fucking devastated. You were always complaining that one didn't fit right, anyways."

Val's face blossomed red with vexation as she looked at her husband helplessly, seeing that he could care less about her demand before fixing her glare on to Sam, but the blue-eyed woman stared right back at her, meeting her glare and not flinching. Her icy gaze cancelled out the heat of her new opponent's, making the wife look away with a frustrated growl.

"Besides, it looks better on Sam," Negan said, giving the woman a smile and a wink before looking back at his wife. "You don't have the kind of waist for that vintage shit."

"But I wanted to wear it for you tonight," she cooed, her voice and face softening as she changed tactics.

"There wouldn't be much point in doing that since I didn't fucking ask for you tonight," he replied brutally, making Val gasp.

Sherry pushed off from the bar, attempting to come to a stricken Val's defense, "Negan-"

"Not a fucking word, Sherry," he cut her off, pointing in her direction. "I already fucking went over this with all of you, not even a fucking hour ago. I told you how this was, what it was and how I fucking expect it to go. I'm not dealing with this guarding-my-territory shit every time one of you decides to release your inner bitch because another vagina sets foot on this floor, I don't have the motherfucking patience for it."

Once every dress-wearing woman, whether they had said something or not, was staring at the floor like it was the most interesting thing they had ever seen in their lives, the man backed down.

Negan knew the signs of a male vying for dominance like his dick knew a warm hole in the dark, but years of experience on the front lines of the adolescent battlefield allowed him to also be able to recognize when a female was doing it. Though he had given them all the don't-be-a-cunt-to-my-friends lecture, it had been directed mostly at Val, the frequent offender.

For her to pull her come-hither act in front of Sam in an attempt to clit measure after he had just got done telling her _not_ to do that - it really pissed him off.

Now all the wives were doing that thing that drove him up the fucking wall where they pretended to get scared. They knew better than that. He didn't beat them, he didn't force them into sex when they didn't want it, he didn't punish them for no good reason. Fuck, they didn't even have to talk to him. He didn't fucking like to talk to them, either, most of the time.

There were crystal clear lines for what got them rewarded and what got them in trouble, and the only time they needed to be afraid of him was when they did something that fell into the latter category, like Val had just done, and even then he went a lot easier on them than he did anyone else. This banning together to look meek and defenseless was bullshit they pulled often in front of other people to make him seem like even more of a douchebag. Fuck if he knew why. Hedging their bets, he guessed.

Curious, he threw a side glance at Sam, gauging her expression and smirking when he saw that it was just as indifferent as usual. She stood with her arms crossed loosely under her fine chest, watching the wives curl into each other and looking unimpressed.

"Better get used to each other, ladies," he said, projecting his voice louder than necessarily. "You know how it goes, the one with the tightest cunt gets my attention, and nothing says 'I've got a tight one' like a cutthroat bitch."

Finally reaching her limit, Sam left without a word, slamming the door behind her.

The other women gasped and stared dumbstruck at her not waiting for a dismissal from Negan. They all looked at him, almost trembling at how their sometimes volatile husband would react to her blatant disrespect, but he only let out a howl of laughter, throwing his whole upper body back and clutching his side.

"She's so fucking _intense_ , I love it!" he giggled, clenching his teeth and growling out his choice of adjective.

He let his laughter go on before it tampered off and he sobered up with a rough cough. Without looking at the women still staring at him, he swaggered off back towards his bedroom.

"I've got a lot of shit to do, so none of you fucking bother me."

There was a palpable silence among the harem after he disappeared into his room, letting the sound of another door slamming resonate through their parlor.

~O~

Sam sat alone in her new room, looking at the stack of loose leaf paper and box of Crayola crayons that someone had put on the coffee table while she was out. A tray of half-eaten dinner sat on the counter of the kitchenette while the new items she had picked out from the marketplace laid scattered on her bed.

She was thinking, analyzing everything that happened as she watched the colors of dusk fade through the windows. As Negan had promised, the door to her room was locked and she was left to her own devices until morning. With that time, she compartmentalized. Almost in meditation, she broke down every word that had been said and carefully filed it away under the many categories that made up her labyrinthine mind.

" _-it's not just about me not being able to let you leave. I don't want you to go._ "

Opening her eyes, she braced her hands on the arms of the lounge chair and pushed herself up.

" _I want you to stay here, with me-_ "

Switching on the floor lamp, she wandered over to the wardrobe, reaching her hands out to explore the material of the garment hanging on the front of it. Laura had let out a laugh of genuine mirth when Sam had announced that this was what she wanted.

" _I like you._ "

A knee-length, form-fitting, a-line dress with cap sleeves and a scoop neckline.

A white dress.

The price tag from whatever store it had been looted from was still hanging by the washing label - never been worn - pristine - untouched - incorruptible.

" _You have a place here where you can really shine._ "

On the box of crayons there had been a sticky note, reading: ' _Expecting great things from you, Mouse!_ '

He signed it with his first initial and a little heart.

That, paired with what he had said earlier, was his greatest and most effective strategy yet.

Curling her fingers into the fabric of the dress, she closed her eyes and breathed in deep.

" _-you're not unwanted here-_ "

He was a very clever man, because Sam hadn't felt wanted by anyone since she was twelve years old, and that attempt to win her over cut worse than all of his others.

Fine, she would play his game. Negan had won the last couple of rounds, no doubt, but if he thought that he had her completely beat, defeated, then he was wrong.

She would do the work given to her and keep her nose clean, but she would never be fully complaisant. Samantha had stopped complying with others just because they were bigger and stronger than her a long time ago.

Putting the dress inside the wardrobe and walking back over to the sitting area, Sam picked up a piece of paper and a crayon as she settled back down into her chair.

She got to work that night, but not on plans for the betterment of the Sanctuary. She constructed the key that would reestablish her as a solid player in this power grab between her and Negan - her ace in the hole.

* * *

 **AN: This was a BEAST, so make sure to let me know what you think.**

 **1) I have Sam and Negan contrast a lot because I like them to be foil characters, but in this case, I think they both have psychopathic tendencies (Negan's violence/Sam's lack of social convention), but aren't actually psychopaths. They're capable of expressing genuine emotion, but they can either delay their response, or chose not to react at all (ex: Negan brutally killing/Sam not expressing grief).** **They're both highly desensitized.**

 **2) With the wives, I'm going to be using mostly the comic versions, with no sick sister/mother backstories. I could care less about Sherry's redemption arch in the show, or whatever they were trying to do with her.** **And I went with Sherry and Amber's comic appearances. The actress they got to play Amber looks fifteen, so no thanks.**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


	11. Getting Nowhere Fast

**AN: Thanks so much for the reviews last chapter! I'm happy to report that I finally got a beta reader for this story. Shout out to xStormbornx for all her help with the editing!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own The Walking Dead**

* * *

 _Getting nowhere fast, or, "Negan's an ass, Samantha's a bitch, I think we've covered this already."_

 _~O~_

 _~One Month Later~_

Sam stood watching the courtyard from the factory platform, her arms crossed and leaning against the yellow railing.

It was a warm day in spite of it being well into fall. She was able to forego a jacket, instead only wearing her white dress that she paired with sheer black stockings and black riding boots with a sensible block heel. The skirt of her dress fluttered around her knees every time the wind picked up. Though her face betrayed nothing as her eyes trailed analytically over the men patrolling the gate, apprehension bubbled in her stomach as she waited for Negan to return from his run. Her clipboard rested on the ground next to her boot, the silver clip keeping her papers from blowing away.

Groans from the dead and the assaulting smell that accompanied them threatened to chase her back inside, but she remained rooted where she was, where she was expected to be. When the leader of the Saviors returned, she needed to be within his sight as soon as his convoy rolled in, even if he only caught a glimpse of her standing by the factory entrance. It was one of the rules that she had to follow in order to avoid being locked inside her room while he was off the compound.

Sam's gaze traveled from the gate over the courtyard, spotting Dwight standing among a group of lower rank Saviors. They stood in a circle facing each other, passing a cigarette around and laughing. The blonde was the only one not engaging, standing there with his usual scowl. A month in and she still couldn't tell if he was giving the stink eye, or if that was just his face now. She supposed it didn't matter; he rarely had anything positive to say about anything anyways. He still had a severe disliking for Sam, but that was nothing new.

Over the past month some things had changed and some things hadn't. Sam held a position just barely above prisoner but was treated about the same. Her popularity was at an all time low and she felt like drowning herself in her kitchenette sink every morning. She had managed to make some progress through begrudging compliance. Her status improved because of it, just a bit, enough to keep her content which was a relief because she was starting to chafe under such tight restraints.

Her door was still locked from the outside at night. She hadn't yet earned the privilege of not being locked in, but over time her actions had become less monitored. In the beginning, a Savior would come and escort her up to Negan's floor where she would stay until the end of the day before being escorted back to her room and locked in again. However, she had now garnered up enough trust that she wouldn't bolt the second all backs were turned, so she was able to escort herself to her post, as well as to the restroom, the shower room, the cafeteria and the marketplace.

Though the new freedom was nice, her privacy had yet to be restored in any form. Sam knew there were hidden eyes watching her every move. She didn't have to try overly hard to be noticed, not with her track record. If she went anywhere that wasn't a common area, a Savior would appear to herd her back like a wayward lamb. It made her progress feel only surface deep, but at least her movements weren't as restricted and that was something to be optimistic about.

She had tested the limits of these new boundaries only once and learned quick enough that even though there wasn't a chain attached to her ankle anymore, she was still on a leash.

A week into her job, she had gone back up to the roof. Not to kill herself - she was done with that. She just wanted to see. The door to the roof had been blocked off with a chain and padlock, barring any access. If she had been more determined, she could have found something to pick the lock with, but she had only gone up there to see how far she could go before someone came looking. She got her answer when she went back down and found Dwight waiting at the bottom, looking as thrilled as ever.

She didn't receive points for her work. She was allowed to visit the marketplace, but was unable to buy anything. Everything that Negan decided she needed was delivered to her room; meals, toiletries, clothing, books and supplies so she could work on her designs in her downtime. He even left a notebook so she could keep a journal again, but she knew he would read it so it was only ever used for notes.

Everyday her room was picked apart by a Savior, usually Dwight, for suspicious activity or contraband. There wasn't any, nor would there be for the foreseeable future, because Sam had accepted that escape wasn't likely or convenient for her right now. In fact, she wasn't even sure she wanted to escape anymore. This wasn't the high life she was living, but it was easier than living on the road. At least at the Sanctuary she was guaranteed three meals a day and a place to sleep.

She absolutely hated her job, though. Hated it enough to still fantasize about running away. Hated it enough to long for the days where she would crawl around in the vents with total anonymity.

(The grates on the vents were now welded shut. Every single one.)

She followed Negan everywhere on the compound, taking notes, managing his schedule and appointments. She assisted him in nearly all his endeavors, preparing any equipment he might need, scheduling his appointments, filling out and filing paperwork, relaying messages and running errands. She learned all of the Sanctuary's procedures and committed them to memory. She held no power or authority whatsoever. She wasn't an advocate for Negan or his spokesperson. She was his shadow, seen and not heard.

Sometimes he made her take dictations just because he could. They would be long and purposefully nonsensical. He would talk until he ran out of things to say and then he would order her to read it all back to him before telling her to scrap it. He did it only to annoy her. He would laugh as she crumbled up the writing she had just done and tossed it into the trash with an unimpressed frown.

She brought him his meals, did his laundry, tidied his rooms and replenished his toiletries, even though he had a worker who could do all that. She didn't do any of the deep cleaning, but she did just enough for it to be humiliating.

She hated her job more than anything, but it wasn't like she could quit or join a union.

"Good afternoon, Ms. Samantha!"

Tearing her eyes from the lost souls intermingled with chainlink, they darted just below her where Simon stood with his head craned back, his thumbs tucked into the waist of his pants and a toothy smile on his mustachioed face.

"How are we this fine day?" he asked her.

"Relishing life."

"Glad to hear it!" he beamed.

He seemed to be waiting for her to reciprocate his greeting, but she went back to scanning the courtyard without another word. Most would take this as a sign of her disinterest in conversation right now, but she held back an annoyed grimace when Simon mounted the platform stairs, the expression on his face telling her that he wasn't finished. Sam turned her head and watched him approach.

"You know, I was talking with the boss man last night over a _de_ -lectable tumbler of bourbon and he mentioned that today's a big day for you."

She let out an ambiguous hum and turned her head forward again as he came to a stop next to her.

"He also told me about how you got your whiskey cherry popped," he chuckled, giving her a wink. "Don't worry, it gets easier."

"Do I come up often during your night caps with Negan?" she asked in a flat tone.

He bobbed his head back and forth, pursing his lips. "So, so."

"Hm."

He continued talking, but she tuned him out, his voice becoming white noise in her ears. Her internal clock told her that Negan was running late and that annoyed her. There was still a lot that she needed to do before she returned to her room for the evening - not to mention her special appointment with Negan that the man's current tardiness threatened to infringe on. The leg that wasn't supporting her weight thumped against the ground, showcasing that state of her nerves. Today was a big day, indeed, but it wasn't going to be a _good_ day.

A high pitch in Simon's tone suggesting that he had asked a question, pulled Sam out of her thoughts.

"Did you hear what I said?" he asked.

"No, I wasn't listening," she replied unabashed.

"I said, I'm sad to report that you won't be seeing much of me around the Sanctuary anymore," he repeated, pausing to give her the chance to ask why. When she didn't, he continued anyway. "Negan's giving me an outpost of my very own to run."

He waited once again for a response, clearly not getting the picture or choosing not to. It got to the point where the awkwardness became too much even for Sam and she finally threw him a bone.

"Congratulations," she deadpanned.

"Yep, it's c'est la vie for me, off to bigger and better things. I've sort of been running things at the Hilltop already, but the boss finally decided to make it official. I won't be gone forever - still gotta check in here every now and again, run things when Negan can't, but other than that, I'll be king of my own castle," he smiled, leaning against the railing next to Sam as if she had invited him - which she hadn't. "I am going to miss it around here, though."

Simon stood with Sam and looked out over the courtyard like they were old friends. If it were an option, she would've removed herself immediately, but of course, today of all days Negan's convoy was running behind.

"Do you think people will miss me?" he asked. "I mean, honestly? I'm interested in your constructive criticism here, since this is a big step up in responsibility for me. I'm looking to develop my listening skills so I can become a more hands-on leader. Hilltop is a community of farmers so I'm thinking this'll be the perfect opportunity to try a gentler approach, you know? Of course I still gotta enforce the rules and all that good stuff, but I wanna have my own leadership style, something that sets me apart from the other outpost lieutenants. Something that strictly says 'Simon' and nothing else, you know?"

No, she didn't know, and she wasn't going to ask.

"Nobody will miss you," she answered his question and ignored the rest.

If he was insulted by her bluntness he didn't show it. "Aw, well that's a shame."

Sam looked towards the road that led to the Sanctuary, for once hoping to see the line of supply trucks approaching. She willed Simon to dissolve into a puff of dust and get swept away by the wind, never to come back and bother her again, but he remained tangible and impeachable next to her.

"Still, it would be nice to have a proper send off, a going away party or something like that. What do you think?"

He grinned at her with a smile that made her feel like he was about to rip her heart from her chest in a satanic ritual. It was far more manic than anything Negan could produce. Why did he care so much about what she thought? He had barely spoken two words to her before now and suddenly he was talking to her like they were the best of pals. And people thought that Sam was weird - at least she was consistent.

"Maybe you and the wives can put together a little something, huh?" he raised his bushy eyebrows in suggestion, "you guys get along, right?"

He nudged her arm with his elbow and chuckled as she recoiled from him in blatant disgust and annoyance. He excused himself before pushing off the railing and descending the stairs, swaggering off to do whatever with his usual air of superiority. Sam ran her hand over where Simon had nudged her, trying to rub away his touch as her mood festered.

Simon would be getting nothing from her.

And, no, she didn't get along with the wives.

In comparison to their husband, her association with the wives didn't fair any better. Despite her desk being in their parlor, Sam hadn't established much of a relationship with any of the wives. Not one of any substance, at least.

There were attempts, initially, of them trying to welcome her into their space as if she were a new wife, but they were far from Sam's orbit. While Negan expected her to go above and beyond to please his every whim, he never mentioned doing the same for his wives, so she didn't. He barely spoke of his wives when she was around, except to make inappropriate jokes and suggestions, and barely gave them a glance when he would step into their parlor to get to Sam's desk.

The vibe that she picked up from the ladies was that this wasn't wholly unusual behavior for Negan, but there were still strange looks sent her way when this happened. She concluded that while it wasn't unusual for the wives to be ignored when he didn't want sex from them, it wasn't usual for him to be so invested in someone he couldn't get sex from period.

Unbeknownst to Sam, Negan didn't treat her like he treated everybody else in the Sanctuary, even his wives. He treated her different. Something was different about him when he interacted with her.

Not better or worse - just different.

And since the wives shared a space with her, and also knew Negan on a personal level, they were able to pick up on this quicker than most. They had their conversations about why that was, when neither Sam nor Negan were on the floor, but they had yet to come to an unanimous conclusion. It was almost like he held favoritism towards Sam, but not quite. She wasn't doted on as one would expect a favorite to be, not in the slightest. She wasn't abused, but she wasn't treated with a lot of respect, either.

Some of the wives were curious about this, others were bored, and maybe a small, select few felt threatened.

Sam was aware of this - the wives' curiosity, not Negan's behavior towards her. There hadn't been enough opportunities to put how he treated her next to how he treated his wives, his men and his workers for her to notice a difference - or maybe she just wasn't paying attention, as Sherry had once suggested.

She did notice them noticing her, though. For the sake of self-preservation, she supposed that being civil with these women would be in her best interest, if only to avoid being complained about to Negan, but sometimes what she thought in her mind didn't match with what came out of her mouth. On more than one occasion, both voluntary and involuntarily, she had chased off a wife.

She thought back to just yesterday, when Fat Joey had dropped off a box of magazines and books for the wives, pillaged from another nameless community. There had been only three wives in the parlor at the time, plus Sam who was going over a marketplace inventory report, paying none of them any attention. Joey gave a cheery hello that might have been directed towards her, since he was never that happy to play chambermaid for Negan's harem, but she didn't look up to check.

He deposited the box on the coffee table and left, sidestepping Frankie and Tanya as they abandoned their card game and converged around the box while Sherry hung back at the bar with her fifth glass of brandy. Frankie pulled open the box and rummaged through its contents, taking out a stack of moth-eaten magazines and setting them on the table. She picked up one and flipped through it while Tanya looked at the books and started picking out the titles that were familiar to her.

From the disappointment on her face there didn't seem to be many. They usually got bad Walmart paperbacks and toilet reads more catered for people with Negan's sense of humor. Before the world had fallen, for most people it had been hard to conjure up the time or interest to read a novel, but now that cellphones and the Internet were no longer a thing, reading had once again become an avid hobby. Good books were a rarity and Negan put effort into finding them. In fact, he made it a necessity to take all books from the communities that he controlled.

The Sanctuary had a decent library, but to the wives' chagrin, a lot of it was non-fiction; instruction manuals, academic textbooks, travelogues and historical biographies. Things that would interest Samantha, but not the wives. There was a collection of Harlequin novels and autobiographies from Hollywood celebrities long dead in the library, but they had already read those ten times over.

Apparently Negan had a personal collection of classics squirreled away in his office somewhere, but the wives never asked to read any of it.

The wives weren't stupid or illiterate. They just had typical tastes for their gender and ages. Being born and raised in the age of technology and then watching it all crash was a hard thing to reconcile and adjust to. Just because reading was the only thing left to do besides playing card games and gossiping, that wasn't going to make them ardent James Joyce and Fyodor Dostoevsky fans overnight. Sam couldn't blame them. Some of the classics were really dry reads - even she had trouble getting all the way through Moby Dick.

It wasn't until Tanya came across a book towards the very bottom that she smiled.

"Hey, I read this one before," she chimed, flashing the cover around the room.

"Yeah, me too, back in middle school, I think," Sherry said, taking another gulp of her drink.

Sam's eyes flickered up at the cover of George Orwell's _Animal Farm_ in Tanya's hand before focusing back on her work, curiosity fleeting.

"What was it about again?" Tanya asked as she skimmed the description on the back. "We were supposed to do the reading at home and then take a test the next day in class, but I never did any of it, just copied off my friend. I could never get into book requirements."

"Communism," Sam replied.

She could feel eyes focus on her, gaining the attention of the room, but she didn't look up.

Tanya's brow knotted and she looked at the cover again. "What?"

"Animal Farm is about Communism."

"Really? I thought it was about pigs and horses living on a farm or something."

"Is that the one with the spider that could write messages in her web?" Frankie piped as she reached out her hand towards the book in a 'gimme' motion. "I loved that book when I was little!"

Tanya raised her arm so that the book was out of the other wife's reach, remarking, "that was Charlotte's Web, genius."

"Oh...then what's this one about?"

"Communism," Sam replied again.

"How do you know?"

"The pigs wear matching jackets with Stalin's mustache bedazzled on the back."

The red head's face curled up. "What?"

"She's just fucking with us again, Frank," Tanya said, glaring at Sam.

"About the communism?"

"I don't know, probably. Come on, let's take these to my room and look through them."

"Leave the animal one here," Sherry instructed. "It looks like something Negan's going to want to add to his collection."

The two gathered up the magazines and books and put them back inside the box before Frankie picked it up and they left the parlor, leaving behind Orwell on the coffee table. Sherry knocked back the last of her drink and stood from the bar. She walked over and picked up the book, flipping it over to read the overview and then flipping back to the cover with a thoughtful look. Her cheeks were flushed and she swayed a little in her stilettos, but there was enough focus there to imply she wasn't completely drunk.

"I think you're right about this book," she said, raising her hand to cover her mouth as a hiccup escaped her throat. "I'm starting to remember it. The farm animals chased off the farmer and the pigs took over."

Sam's pen scratching against paper was the only reply Sherry got. The wife crossed the parlor and put the book on the corner of Sam's desk where she knew Negan would see it.

"You know, they really don't mind having you here," she told the dark-haired woman. "If you were more friendly, they would talk to you."

"I don't want them to talk to me," Sam said in rebuttal, her tone as dry as sandpaper.

She heard Sherry click her tongue in exasperation and her heels moved in the direction of the parlor doors.

No groundwork for friendship there.

They acknowledged each other from time to time, managed to sustain some small talk long enough for it to be considered a conversation, but most of what Sam learned about the harem was from observation, and what she learned wasn't all that noteworthy.

Sherry was the ringleader of the wives so on average Sam had more contact with her, but it was all business. Whenever they exchanged words it was almost always related to Negan, relaying some message or task that he wanted done.

Frankie and Tanya were a pair, favoring each other's company above anyone else's. They were friendly and took the initiative when meeting new people. They were the first ones to approach Samantha once her desk had been set up, but she put them off quick enough and continued to put them off with incidents like Orwell.

Amber didn't spend much time in the parlor. Sam didn't know where she was when she wasn't there, but because of that the two had yet to speak to each other. The blonde seemed enough nice, though. Her and Sam's lack of interaction was more circumstantial than intentional. On the occasions where they were both in the parlor and Sam's eyes would briefly meet Amber's over the blonde's compact mirror, she would give Sam a smile and a little wave before going back to her reflection. She was immersed in her own world.

She had a childish fashion sense that often had her walking around Negan's floor in things like Hello Kitty crop tops, hotpants with hearts printed on them and frilly babydoll nighties that didn't leave much to the imagination. Her voice would take on a high-pitched tone with a strawberry lip gloss pout whenever Negan was around and she wanted something.

Sadie had a habit of touching Sam's hair. She came up behind Sam on her second day of work and threaded her dark fingers through a handful of it (startling Sam witless in the process) and purred that she adored the color. Sam's reaction made the woman laugh and she explained that she wanted to style it. She had been a hairdresser before the end and had worked in the Sanctuary's barbershop before becoming a wife. Now she styled the wives' hair and she was excited to have new material to work with.

Sadie was laidback and didn't mind the constant storm cloud thundering over Sam's head; she possessed a proverbial umbrella of nonchalance that combated it admirably. And like any good stylist, she was able to read body language and facial ques well enough to know when to do all the talking. Sam didn't let Sadie style her hair, and probably never would, but she declined the offer amicably.

Val made her contempt for Sam blatant, but ignored her most of the time. Sam didn't doubt that the wife talked about her when she wasn't around, but as long as she never incited a direct confrontation, Sam didn't care. Relevancy was necessary when gaining Samantha's attention, and vital when keeping it. Whatever didn't place itself directly in her field of vision, Sam didn't concern herself with. So as long as Val ignored her, there weren't any problems.

She was fortunate enough not to have walked in on or witness any of Negan's liaisons with his wives, mostly because she would return to her room before it got too late. Talk from the wives suggested an array of sordid details that she didn't appreciate hearing and she would remove herself from the room before things got too graphic. She went out of her way to avoid the subject. She would firmly knock on any door that she didn't know who was on the other side of, or what they were doing. If she was at her desk and she heard any suspicious sounds, she would take an impromptu lunch break without investigating. She knew that one of these days she was going to end up seeing something gross, but until then she took precautions to avoid it.

Negan's sexual innuendos knew no limits, however, and that was a unique struggle all its own.

Sam's job as Negan's assistant wasn't backbreaking work or unbearable. She just didn't like being forced to associate with his inner circle. If Negan had to give her a job, she would rather have a manual one like the workers. Their opinion of Sam was still fifty-fifty with some admiring her for pulling one over on Negan and others hating her for cheating the system, but at least working on the ground floor would be less complicated. Being on the top floor among the elite of the Sanctuary gave insight to Negan that Sam didn't vie for.

What seemed like a generally easygoing man beyond his role as leader, actually housed someone often in an irritable, brooding mood. When he wasn't putting on his grandiose act of an eccentric psychopath, his resting disposition was anything but. In fact, it was rather ordinary. It was as if his 6'2 body contained two separate people.

There would be moments, when Sam would knock on his office door or bedroom and he would fail to hear it, where she would catch him sitting at his desk or on his couch or his bed, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees and his face looking quite solemn. Dark eyes would be trained on the floor, lost some place vast where no one else was permitted to go. His expression would be long and drawn out. His deep smile lines and crows feet more prominent, and paired with the silver of his beard, they would betray his age more than ever.

Wherever his mind was in those moments was so far out that even after she entered the room, it would take him several seconds to acknowledge her. When he did, the darkness in his half-lidded eyes would fade and he would look up at her, smiling a smile that didn't quite reach its usual wattage, and drawl out a lazy greeting.

"Hey there, Mouse. When did you scurry in?"

Sam could see him summoning the energy to put on a show, but couldn't swing it.

Whoever Sam had walked in on couldn't be further from the man who ran the imposing juggernaut that was the Sanctuary with an iron fist.

And as she learned things about Negan, he learned things about her. Things she wasn't too keen on sharing but ended up doing anyways. He once attempted to chew her out for making a mistake on a document and it led to Sam revealing that she was colorblind. Last week he had come storming out of his office, clutching a report in his hand, glaring at her as if she had written a big "fuck you" across the page instead of inventory numbers.

"What the fuck, Mouse, you wrote all of this in red pen again. I told you not to do that shit!"

"Someone touched my desk," Sam had replied, as if that explained everything.

"And? Who fucking cares? We're not talking about that, we're talking about this. This is the third fucking time you've done this and I've already told you that it drives me fucking nuts. This isn't my 'what I did over my summer fucking vacation' essay and you ain't my teacher grading it, so don't write in fucking red pen. Red is the Grim Reaper of the pen colors and you ain't mighty enough to fucking wield it. Do I need to get Carson up here to check your fucking eyesight? Are you fucking colorblind?"

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, I'm colorblind."

"-the fuck," he inquired eloquently. He gave her a harsh, scrutinizing look even though she was staring at a piece of paper in front of her, writing as if he wasn't standing right fucking next to her, chewing her ear off. Sometimes Sam was so stoic, even he couldn't tell for sure if she was being serious or sarcastic. He raised an eyebrow at her dubiously. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

He looked down at her desk, noting not for the first time how everything had a specific place, with labels crafted from sticky notes and how she had four pen cups; one for red ink, one for green, one for blue and one for black - each labeled in bold letters. There was one lone red pen amongst the black - right where he had left it when he had borrowed it earlier to make one last note on a piece of paperwork before tossing it carelessly into the cup closest to him.

"Well," he grunted, reaching up to rub the back of his neck, "I guess that explains why all my whites last week came back fucking pink. Think you could've taken a fucking second to mention this before? Shit."

"One of your wives' thongs got mixed in. It must've been red, I couldn't see it."

"What color did you see?"

"Green."

"Who the fuck wears a green thong ever other than on St. Patrick's Day?"

He had a point. Sam could have worked out that the piece of lingerie was red and not green with her color intuition, but she had missed it - as in she hadn't notice it at all. She didn't always handle Negan's laundry like he expected her to, but she wasn't going to admit that, so she shrugged her shoulders noncommittally.

He stared at her with a half-lidded look, letting out a soft snort at this new knowledge and wondering back on the other signs he had missed. He had never thought much of it before then. In general, Sam was particular almost to the point of OCD, so he had figured this was just another one of her weird hang-ups.

Rubbing at his chin, he started to walk away but stopped, turning slow on his heel with a thoughtful look. He held up a finger as if a revelation had suddenly come over him.

"Wait," he smirked, "is that why you call the dead ones 'goblins'?"

She didn't reply.

"No shit? Does their blood look _green_ to you?"

She shrugged her shoulders again, still not looking up.

"You're fucking adorable," Negan chuckled as he disappeared into his office.

After that he deliberately did things to test her to see if she was telling the truth, like throwing something at a blind person to see whether they would raise their hands to deflect or take it in the face.

When Negan and Simon were having their little pow-wows in his office, he would often call Sam in. She would immediately know the reason by the way they would stifle their giggles as she entered the room, trying to steel their expressions but failing when the corners of their mouths would twitch upwards. Negan would then instruct her to grab a certain colored shirt from his wardrobe, or hand him a certain colored pen, and of course she would hand him the wrong item, which wasn't very funny but he laughed anyway.

It was the most childish thing, but it didn't stop him from doing it.

Nothing ever stopped Negan from doing or saying what he wanted - not social grace, not human decency and most certainly not basic manners. Perks of being the leader, she supposed. She did her best to ignore his behavior and was successful thus far in not stepping on anybody's toes. Sam's relationship with Negan was a lesson in professional eye-rolling, but that was all.

Today was going to be different, though. She was going to purposely antagonize Negan for the first time in a month. Today was the day that she would present her first blueprint.

As she ran her plan through her head for the umpteenth time, the sound of approaching vehicles finally permeated the goblins' garbled symphony. The Saviors manning the front gate moved from their stations to allow the convoy to enter the courtyard. Sam remained where she was as the white box truck leading the supply line pulled in and parked, the engine cutting off and the passenger side door opening to reveal Negan and his bat. Simon reappeared to greet him as Dwight and his group moved to help unload the trucks. Negan smiled like a light bulb beaming to life when he caught sight of his right hand, giving him a hearty hello.

Sam watched them touch base, waiting for Negan to notice her. It took a few minutes, but once he finished briefing Simon on the success of the supply run, he finally took stock of the ongoings around him and spotted Sam up on the platform, her face expression more sour than a pitcher of lemonade with no sugar - his ray of sunshine.

The moment he saw her, Negan became suspicious, seeing the woman in her white dress, looking so pretty and superior against the gritty world around her. He knew she only wore that fucking thing when she was trying to make a point about something. He remembered their appointment and he was eager to see what she had come up with, but his eagerness came with a healthy dose of caution. He never knew what level to set his expectations with Samantha.

Unbeknownst to her (he was pretty sure but not one hundred percent - she had a wicked poker face), he had tested her several times over the past month to see if she would try anything.

He gave her opportunities to steal from the marketplace, to steal another gun off his Saviors, to steal knives from the kitchen and tools from the workshops. Back when she still had escorts, he purposely had his Saviors leave her unsupervised at random intervals to see if she would run. When she was alone with him in his office and he was having her take notes, he would put Lucille within grabbing distance and his knife on the desk before turning his back, pretending to enjoy the view from his office window.

Every time he planted a trap, Sam would sidestep it without a second glance. He gave her the best, most tempting openings to cause shit that he could think of, but she kept her sticky fingers to herself and her nose to the grindstone, taking every insult and indignity he threw her way like a champ. With her stellar performance, eventually he had to no choice but to reward her and give her more freedom. He didn't know what her deal was, whether she was genuine in her actions or if she was going for the long-con, but even with her sudden cooperation making his life easier, he wasn't going to let his guard down. She stuck to his side like glue just like he had told her to, albeit begrudgingly, and he should have been happy about this, but it unnerved him more than it pleased him.

So he didn't even acknowledge her as he mounted the stairs, flanked by two men, and stepped inside the building to do his rounds.

Once he was inside, Sam pushed off the railing and bent down to pick up her clipboard before entering the main building through a different entrance. In the distance, she could hear Negan addressing the crowd in the furnace room. She mounted the steps and began the climb up towards the top floor, her boots tapping as she went.

Wearing her dress had clued Negan in, as she thought it would. Sam had others articles in her wardrobe, having accumulated a decent selection over the month, mostly business casual and casual; collared blouses, cardigans, sweaters, practical skirts, long-sleeve thermals, dark-colored jeans with a few pairs of ankle boots, flats and canvas shoes. With her close association with Negan, she was given the means to look nice because of the clean image the leader liked to maintain in his personal circle. But the white dress was by far the nicest piece she owned, and thus was only taken out on special occasions. It was the most passive aggressive Sam was capable of being; she never cared much for symbolism.

The wives' parlor was empty when she entered through the double doors. She walked over to her desk and sat down, reaching underneath to touch the rolled up blueprint that she had stored there earlier in the day. Her fingertips skimmed the paper, assuring Sam that her project was still where she had left it, before she sat up straight and preoccupied herself with paperwork until Negan returned from his rounds. About half an hour later, the parlor doors swung open and Negan came in, making a beeline for his office.

As she waited to be called in, Val chose that moment to saunter into the parlor, wearing a cheetah print teddy and a black stiletto boots, her face made up and her brassy hair tossed. Sam's eyes flickered up from her work and followed the wife as she strutted towards Negan's office with an exaggerated sway of her hips. She gave Sam a smug smile when she passed her desk, grabbing the doorknob and entering without knocking.

Sam felt her cheeks heat up as she rolled her eyes at the wife's obvious intentions. Her skin prickled and her gut twisted in that uncomfortable way at the thought of what was about to take place in the room next door.

Perturbed that her appointment was apparently put on hold, she pushed her paperwork aside and moved to stand, but the door opened again not even a minute later and Val reappeared, looking red in the face, but not flustered like she had been sent away with a searing kiss and the promise of saucy rendezvous at a later time. Angry, like she had been told to fuck off the second she had entered.

"Hey, Creature Feature," she barked at Sam, jutting her thumb over her shoulder, "Negan wants to see you."

As Val stomped out of the parlor with a pout, Sam reached underneath her desk and pulled out her blueprint, holding it securely in both hands as she stood up and stepped inside the open entry of Negan's office. Closing the door behind her, she made a quick survey of the room where she saw Negan seated at his desk. He still wore his leather jacket, but it was left unzipped with a white shirt underneath and his scarf gone.

Not needing any prompting, she sat in the chair placed in front of his desk. She crossed one leg over the other and smoothed the wrinkles out of her dress, placing the blueprint and her hands in her lap, waiting for Negan. He sat in his chair, looking down at a piece of paper in his hand, but she knew he wasn't really reading it because he wasn't wearing his glasses. She ignored the urge to sigh.

When a fair amount of time passed without any instruction, she took the initiative and moved to put her blueprint on his desk, but Negan raised his hand and stopped her with a wag of his finger.

"Whoa, hold up," he chided. "I know your excited to make me feel dumb, but there's no need to rush. I've got something I want to say first."

Sam settled back into her chair, apprehensive. He set his paper aside and leaned forwards, the leather of his jacket squealing in protest and the zippers flashing, until his arms came to rest on the desktop. He gave her a contemplative look. He held it for a few moments before smiling a smile meant to disarm but only made her more anxious.

"I just wanted to take a minute to tell you how awesome of a job you've been doing lately. You've done everything that I've asked of you and kept yourself out of trouble. You're not my wives' or my Saviors' favorite person, but that hardly fucking matters. _I_ think you're doing great, and what I think is much more important than what those cockshits think. And because you're doing so great, I thought I might give you little present as a reward."

Sam eyed Negan with suspicion as he opened one of his desk drawers and reached inside. She waited for him to show her whatever it was that he had, but he was taking his time, flashing her a grin as he fished something out of the drawer, his hand strategically placed so she couldn't see. He put it on the desktop and pulled his hand away with a jovial "ta-da!". She looked down and almost gasped.

It was her penlight.

It sat innocently against the polished wood of the desk like a juicy red apple being offered up to a famished traveler, but it was so obviously a trap, he might as well have poised the penlight over a loaded bear trap.

He was baiting her, she knew it, and she was honestly thinking it over despite this.

It seemed so stupid to consider showing her hand just because of a little flashlight, but that penlight was the only thing she had left from before the outbreak. Other than important supplies like food and weapons, Sam hadn't taken much with her when she had decided to leave her cousins' place on the reservation for somewhere safer, but what she had taken held significant sentimental value. Her glasses, her father's Swiss army knife and tool collection, Rhett's dog collar, a picture of her parents, a picture of her and her Uncle Cormac camping in the Glacier Bay National Park west of Juneau, and her penlight. From Alaska to Virginia, she had lost everything that she had brought with her somewhere along the way, except her penlight.

That penlight was the last remnant of her former life other than what she had stored away in her head.

It wasn't too late. He knew she was about to do something that he wouldn't like and he was giving her the chance to abort and fess up.

Sam seriously considered her options.

Becoming a Savior had always been a scary thought to her. To lose such a large facet of herself and surrender. To bark "I'm Negan" on command and mean it.

Initially, Sam had been so terrified of becoming one of them, but after being an official member of the Sanctuary for a month, she now realized that while she was held subservient underneath Negan's control, she would never stop trying to pull herself out, even if she had to crawl. She could live here, at the Sanctuary, as Negan's personal slave. She could document his orders, write down every word he said, clean his bedroom, do his laundry - she could do it all and still remain sane. She could carve a place for herself at the Sanctuary and still remain her own individual self. The plans resting in her lap were proof of that. She didn't have to worry anymore. He could use and abuse her all he liked, it wouldn't change a thing.

She would never be Negan. Better or worse, no matter what, she would always be Samantha. All that was left was for Negan to also realize it so they could move past this, and then maybe some good could come from their paths having crossed.

She just wished that she had realized this earlier so she could've thought of a different way to show Negan her stance, instead of pissing him off and losing all the progress she had made with the man with this stupid plan that she was now regretting. This wasn't a brave act of defiance. She was picking fights.

(If wishes were horses.)

She pulled her eyes away from her penlight and stared at Negan with a look of resolve, rejecting his "gift", and placed the blueprint on to his desk, sliding it forward with finality. Might as well see it through since they were here.

Negan narrowed his eyes at her before snatching up the plans.

Loudly clearing his throat, he put on his glasses and unrolled the blueprint. Sam's eyes dropped to her lap, unable to watch.

Flattening the blueprint across his desk so he could see all of it, Negan was greeted with sketches of solar panels. He had told Sam that as a test run he wanted her to come up with something simple that didn't require a lot of resources or manpower, and he was pleased with what she had chosen. Solar panels were a concept that he had thought of several times before, but had never gotten around to implementing. He had electrical workers who could hook the panels up to the Sanctuary's system, like that little twerp Sam occasionally associated with, but none of his mechanical workers had the experience or education to design them.

As he looked over the sketches, absently stroking his chin, he thought about where he could put them. They could be retrofitted for the roof of the main building or placed in a sectioned off part of the courtyard, or even placed outside the gates in some neighboring fields since the dead pricks didn't give two shits about anything inorganic. His men would just have to make sure a herd of them didn't trip over and pile up on the panels, but redirect duty would take care of most of that problem. He could even have them installed in all his outposts.

Feeling almost giddy at all the new prospects blooming in his head, Negan couldn't fight the smile that threatened to split his face, and he made the mistake of letting his guard down. However, when he looked over the directions and notes on the panels' construction that Sam had made, his brow knotted in confusion and he frowned.

The measurements, dimensions, equipment and notes were all jumbled, the letters mixed up in a way that he wasn't able to read.

"What the fuck," he growled, glaring at Sam. "I can't read this."

"I know. That's the point," Sam replied, pulling her gaze from her hands to look him in the eye, unflinching at the anger she could already see building there. "All my plans are encrypted with a code that only I know. If you want the full plans, then maybe you should ask more nicely."

Her tone held no satisfaction or snark as she explained. It had been there when she had rehearsed her responses earlier, when she was feeling proud and pleased with herself, but now that she knew she wouldn't derive any pleasure from doing this, she couldn't summon the will. Instead, the words just left a bad taste in her mouth as embarrassment crept in to replace her lost nerve.

Negan stared down at the plans as if the sheer heat in his gaze would somehow unscramble the words, but she remained confident that they would stay eligible no matter how hard he glared at them.

As Sam had traveled from town to town, city to city, and then eventually state to state, wandering aimlessly for a safe place to rest, she would salvage bookstores just as often as she would grocery stores and pharmacies. They would usually be picked clean of anything halfway entertaining, but that wasn't what she wanted, and neither were the How-To and survival books. There was nothing in those books that could teach Sam that she already didn't know so there wasn't any point cluttering up her bag with them.

What she looked for were books on encryption.

Unfortunately, the stores were mostly vacant of those as well. There was an influx of interest in classic cryptography since the world had fell (the use of linguistics rather than mathematics and computers which modern cryptography used). People were looking to hide caches of supplies and communicate their location to fellow members of their groups on buildings or street signs without worry of looting from third parties. On her travels, Sam had come across transposition ciphers (rearranging the order of letters, i.e. 'supplies inside' to 'pplessiu deisni'), substitution ciphers (replacing each letter with the one following it in a foreign alphabet, such as Latin or French), and Caesar ciphers (replacing a letter by shifting a number of positions further down the alphabet, i.e. a shift value of three - A becomes D, B becomes E).

Classic cryptography has been around for thousands of years and it was interesting to witness the resurgence. The ciphers she found were all of varying difficulty to decode with some being more complex than others. Sam had even come across a substitution cipher using the Phoenician alphabet (in _Oklahoma_ of all places), the first alphabet ever conceived and in which Greek, Hebrew, Roman and Arabic were derived from. It was the only one Sam was unable to decrypt and she found herself half in love with whom ever had written it. The only way she could have been more impressed was if she had found one written in hieroglyphics.

Once people had realized there was no help coming and that they were on their own, they'd began raiding libraries and bookstores. Luckily, Sam didn't have a dire need for code books, since she was by herself, but she had always had an interest in the subject and took the opportunity to finally study it in-depth as she traveled. It was another skill to add to her repertoire should she ever need to use it - like now.

If Sam had the money and resources to do and become anything she wanted, she might've gone into cryptanalysis. With cryptography engineering or security engineering, she could've developed programs to help people keep their personal data safe - or maybe satisfy a popular childhood fantasy of becoming an agent of espionage, decoding encrypted messages of great importance for top secret organizations to stop terrorist cells or Bond-esque villains wielding weapons of mass destruction, holding the world hostage. But alas, mechanical engineering was more practical and her knack laid more with machines than computers.

Sam had employed a vigenere cipher with the keyword GOBLIN, and encrypted her notes and journals with it. A vigenere cipher was made up of a sequence of Caesar ciphers with different shift values. Once you understood how vigenere ciphers worked, they weren't all that hard to figure out. The process was just extremely tedious, enough to keep someone who wasn't all that determined to figure it out from taking her stuff or copying her work. It was also how she would ensure her place in the Sanctuary, because unless Negan had a decrypter on hand, or someone vaguely interested in puzzles and decoder rings as a kid, then he would have to rely on Sam to get what he wanted.

Originally, she had done it for leverage, but now that she had fully accepted her new place in the Sanctuary, it was her 'terms and conditions', her guarantee that she wouldn't be tossed aside should something or someone come along capable of keeping Negan's interest more than she could.

Sam jumped when Negan suddenly snatched up her blueprint in a fit of rage and crumbled it up into a ball and chucked it over her head, making the woman duck. He then stood from his chair, pulling himself to his full, intimidating height and commanding in a low tone:

"Get the fuck out of my sight."

The order warranted no response and the look on his face told Sam that any protest would not be well received, so she stood from her chair and left his office without a word.

When the door clicked shut, Negan collapsed back into his chair with an air of defeat, his legs stretched out in front of him. His hands came up to cover his face and he groaned into them.

' _Fucking checkmate. Game over._ '

Neither of them lost, technically, Sam still had herself and Negan - well, he had _parts_ of Sam, but neither got everything they wanted. This conflict between them now felt off-balanced with Sam no longer resisting from her side, leaving Negan pushing against air. If this was truly the best he was going to get, then he supposed there was nothing left to do but collect his winnings and just go home.

Maybe he'd punish the little shit, maybe he wouldn't. He would decide later.

A knock at the door was the only thing that kept him from flipping his desk over as his anger fluctuated from a stewing simmer to volcanic. Praying to God that it wasn't Sam coming for seconds, for both their sakes, he barked at whoever it was to enter.

The door opened to reveal the greasy head and fucked up face of Dwight.

"How did it go?" he asked, taking stock of the room and noting how it looked surprisingly intact.

"Why the fuck to do you care?" Negan snapped.

The blonde shrugged his bony shoulders and Negan let out a sigh.

"Fucking went about as well as I thought it would."

When Dwight didn't give a reply, the older man stood from his desk and walked over to the entrance of his office, the blonde immediately stepping to the side to allow his leader to pass him.

"I'm going to go plow your ex-wife with my gigglestick until she can't walk. Lock up for me, will ya?"

Dwight turned his gaze towards the ground with a submissive nod as Negan patted him roughly on the back and snickered, walking off to seek out his wives. He had a lot of stress he needed to work out and he was sure a massage from Frankie and then a threesome with her and Sherry with plenty of ass play would fix him right up.

Dwight waited until Negan disappeared, collecting himself, before moving to step out of the office and close it behind him, but he stopped when he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He looked down at the floor and saw the crumpled up blueprint. He released the doorknob and walked over to the blue ball, bending down until both knees popped. With careful fingers, he uncrumpled the paper until he was able to read what was on it. His brows knotted pensively as his eyes danced over the sketches and illegible writing before he folded it into a small square.

He tucked it away into his pants pocket and moved to leave the room, turning off the light and closing the door behind him, locking it.

~O~

Later that night, once Negan had calmed down enough to stand being in the same room as her without having a conniption, Sam was called to his bedroom to go over the new inventory numbers from the latest supply run. Negan barely said anything to her as he lowered himself into the plush leather of his couch and began writing in his binder. He gave Sam the paperwork he usually had her do and she sat in the lounge chair furthest from him. They worked in silence for the next couple of hours.

By the time Sam finished her work, it was almost midnight. She put her clipboard aside and leaned backwards over the back of her chair in a stretch, groaning as the joints in her spine popped. When she straightened, she rubbed at her dry eyes.

Dropping her hands and stifling a yawn, she blinked as her eyes refocused. She turned to look back at Negan, finding him slumped into his couch with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes shut behind his glasses. Sam watched his torso rise and fall as he took in deep, even breathes.

She exhaled through her nose before hoisting herself up and walking over to the couch. Carefully, she leaned in and slipped Negan's glasses off so the frames wouldn't get bent if he shifted in his sleep, taking care not to let her fingertips touch the sides of his face. Glasses were important. His looked nice and expensive - not like her steeply discounted Costco frames from before the fall. She studied them, turning them over. Prescription reading glasses from an optometrist office - Negan was far-sighted. They must've been his from before, unless he was able to loot a pair with his exact prescription. She wondered how he was able to keep them intact through all this mess; a feat Sam herself hadn't been able to manage.

She cataloged this information before folding and placing them on the coffee table along with her finished paperwork where he would find them when he woke up. She switched off the lamp by his head and navigating her way towards the door in the dark.

As she walked away, from his resting position on the couch, without his breathing changing its easy rhythm, Negan's eyes slowly drifted open to watch Sam's departure without her knowledge. His face remained expressionless as she stepped out of his bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her.

* * *

 **AN: I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Please let me know your thoughts in a review. I really appreciate the feedback!**

 **~Scorpiofreak~**


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